AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE NEEDED TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANS FOR A BETTER USAGE OF DIGITAL LIBRARY ( EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
- INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
University libraries are part of university system. These libraries support the objectives of the university which include teaching, learning and research at high levels. They are the heart of the intellectual life of academic communities basically established to provide information materials of all sorts to back up the academic programs of the university. Agboola (2005) declared that University libraries are very important components of university institutions. This is because no academic excellence will be achieved without a good library to back up its teaching, research and other community service mandates. Today, in this information age, university libraries are no longer confined to buildings on campuses but they are a new hybrid learning space, serving a far broader purpose. They contain documents in organized electronic forms, available on the internet or CD-ROM (Compact-disk read-only-memory) disks etc. (Digital Dictionary, 2008). Lombardi (2000:1) noted the following dialogue: I don’t need the library, it’s too big, too complicated, and anyway, everything worth having is on the internet”, the bright eager undergraduate answered the ancient faculty librarian who recommended using the library. “Anyway, the library’s catalog is on-line, and I can look at it if I need stuff”. She concluded. “But maybe, you’ll need one of the real books that they have in the library”. She concluded, “But probably not, and anyway, if there is a source online, I’ll always use it before anything in the library. Conversations like this appear with increasing frequency among students, university dons and researchers. Students of the 21st century see the traditional library as mostly irrelevant, housing old and obsolete materials and they have little patience with the formal organizational structure of the library and the authority of librarians. Covi and Cragin (2004),
