Consultancy in Library and Information services: the Nigerian Perspective
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Date
2011-07
Authors
Adewuyi, O.W
Olaojo, P.O
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Nigerian Library Association
Abstract
The paper defined consultancy service as a means of providing advisory and professional services which enable organizations to achieve its goals. The paper gave characteristics of consulting business, reasons why consultancy is desirable as well as who needs consultants. The paper argues that information producers/workers, notably, librarians, archivists, are becoming more gradually and aggressively consultants in their chosen profession through what can be referred to as information marketing with appropriate pricing of information services and products such as the E mail service, telephone service, internet service, binding service, etc. However, the paper stressed that Nigerians' appreciation of librarianship as professional is extremely poor when compared to other professions like medicine, law, engineering, advertising, etc.
Copies of a questionnaire were administered using random sampling technique on the respondents and it was discovered that (1) the study revealed that Librarians in Nigeria are willing to make use of their professional skills in the area of consultancy but the public seems not to be patronizing them, perhaps due to the low appreciation of importance of libraries (2) the greatest percentage of the respondents have been engaging in consultancy services in library and information services (3) there is no significant difference between number of years of experience and involvement of respondents in library and information consultancy services in Nigeria since the calculated Chi-square of 10.39 is less than critical chi-square of 25.00 (4) there are more specialists than the generalists.
The paper recommends that ;( 1) Nigerian public should engage more in reading for pleasure and national development, as this will in turn improve the public appreciation and demand for consultancy in library and information services. (2) Consultancy and Public Speaking be included as courses in the curriculum of the Library and Information Science in Nigerian Institutions offering the discipline as this would equip students in the area of effective communication skills while negotiating for consultancy services.
Description
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Keywords
Consultancy , Information Services
Citation
Adewuyi, O.W and Olaojo, P.O (2011) Consultancy in Library and Information services: the Nigerian Perspective. Nigerian Libraries. Journal of the Nigerian Library Association. Volume 44(1).