The Place Of Ict In The Development Of Nigerian Public Libraries

Keywords: Library, ICT, Impact, Effectiveness, Digitization

 

Library and  Information Services have undergone various stages of transformation from inception.

This dates back to the oral tradition era when human brain served as the reposting of ideas, knowledge and information; that were transmitted from one person to another through words of mouth. The obvious advantage of the library at this stage was the inability of human brain to store and retain all the knowledge and information available. There is also the subsequent demise of human custodian which leads to considerable loss of valuable knowledge and information.

Other factors that hastened the development of library and information services have to do with the emergence of writing in places like Egypt, Babylon, Sumerian, Persia, Assyria, and Phoenicia. At this time, knowledge and information were recorded on clay tablets, papyrus sheets, stones, and parchament/vellum papers and back of trees were preserved in the palaces of Kings and Queens. The library and its services at this stage were the exclusive preserve of the privilege class in the society.

The invention of printing in the 16th century by Johan Gutenberg in 1450 also helped in no small way to quicken the pace of library development as books were massively produced and made available at affordable places. Further advances in science and technology gave rise to the information explosion with its attendant challenges of how to cope with the storage, retrieval and dissemination of information to numerous library users. Hence, the emergence of computers with its high storage and retrieval capabilities to meet these challenges have been introduced in order to facilitate dissemination of information resources to library users. More so, the upsurge of virtual libraries and the internet has helped to widen the scope of library and information services beyond the traditional norms.