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Grant to benefit four Nigerian university libraries
Andrea
Lynn, Humanities Editor
217-333-2177; andreal@uiuc.edu
2/6/2006
|
CHAMPAIGN, Ill.
— Nigerian librarians are wrestling with serious problems –
insufficient bandwidth, unstable power and limited access to research
materials, but they are about to receive some help thanks to a new grant
to the Library at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The Mortenson Center for International Library Programs has received
a $303,000 MacArthur Foundation grant to provide professional development
training on how to use technology and electronic resources to more effectively
meet the information needs of Nigeria’s university students and
researchers.
The three-year grant, which began on Jan. 1, 2006, will focus on four
MacArthur grantee university libraries: Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria;
Bayero University Library, Kano; University of Ibadan Library, Ibadan;
and the University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt. The MacArthur Foundation
awarded the center a grant last year to do a needs-assessment of Nigerian
libraries.
“The project is intended to strengthen university libraries so
that they can contribute to the development of robust research universities
in Nigeria,” said Susan Schnuer, principal investigator of the
grant and the associate director of the Mortenson Center.
MacArthur says its long-term support for the four leading Nigerian universities
is “helping them to rebuild and upgrade their facilities, curricula
and faculty.”
According to Schnuer, there’s a wide range of development at the
libraries in each of the four Nigerian institutions.
“Some have an online catalog, electronic resources and an active
Intranet, while other are not yet wired for technology.
“However, as is true of many universities in several countries
in Africa, insufficient bandwidth is a problem, making access to electronic
resources slow and unpredictable. The bandwidth problem is one MacArthur,
together with many other foundations, including Partnership for Higher
Education in Africa, is addressing and bandwidth availability has started
to improve in many of these institutions.”
Unstable power in Nigeria “also lends its own set of problems,”
Schnuer said.
The Mortenson Center’s assistance and training will focus on three
priority areas: development of outreach services that assist university
libraries in publicizing newly acquired electronic resources and training
users to take advantage of these resources; planning, implementation
and maintenance of management systems that allow libraries to expand
their current capabilities; development of strategies to effectively
manage electronic resources, focusing on increasing access and ease
of use.
Under a similar grant from the Carnegie Corporation – an award
of $500,000 that will run through 2007 – the center is working
on a project to develop an automated and “dynamic” library
environment in seven institutions in East and West Africa.
The MacArthur grant allows the Mortenson Center to work with groups
of librarians in Nigeria on similar library issues and “develop
a cadre of well-trained librarians in the country,” Schnuer said.
“We are pleased to be able to expand our work with academic libraries
in sub-Saharan Africa as they enhance their programs to support teaching
and research through the use of new technologies,” said Barbara
Ford, director of the Mortenson Center.
Training begins in mid-February in Africa, continuing for three weeks.
Schnuer will be leading a team of three: David Dorman, an independent
automation expert from West Hartford, Conn.; John Hostage, an authorities
librarian at Harvard Law Library; and Kathleen Kern, the digital reference
coordinator at Illinois.
In late March, eight librarians from the four Nigerian institutions
will travel to Illinois to attend a two-month training program. Schnuer
and her colleagues intend to return to Nigeria every year to give additional
training.
MacArthur learned of the Mortenson Center’s work with the Carnegie
institutions in Nigeria and “then wanted us to work with their
institutions.”
While similar in many ways, the MacArthur and the Carnegie grants emphasize
different areas, Schnuer said.
“Carnegie wants us to work on establishing an online catalog while
MacArthur is more interested in putting electronic resources into the
hands of researchers and users. Both institutions want to see the users
of these libraries have better access to information.”
Many universities are involved in projects in Africa, Schnuer said,
but Illinois’ project with the MacArthur and Carnegie grants is
“a unique large-scale professional development initiative with
university libraries in Nigeria.”
Other Mortenson projects have focused on libraries in Central America,
Ghana, Haiti, Japan, Kenya, Russia, South Africa, the former Soviet
Union, Tanzania and Uganda.
The Mortenson Center for International Library Programs is a professional
development center offering programs to librarians around the world.
Established by two generous gifts from C. Water and Gerda B. Mortenson,
it seeks to strengthen international ties among libraries and librarians
worldwide. To date, more than 700 librarians and information specialists
from 86 countries have participated in the programs offered by the Mortenson
Center.
With more than 10 million volumes in 38 departmental libraries, the
University Library is the largest public university collection in the
world.
