LIBRARY USE EDUCATION A PANACEA FOR MUSEUM PROFESSIONALS (original) (raw)
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MUSEUM LIBARIANS A LINK TO CULTURAL HERITAGE
ABSTRACT Museum functions as community centres and serve an important role in the cultural life of their societies. Places where people meet, learn about others, learn about themselves and valorise our increasingly numerous, valuable and fragile cultural assets. Cultural heritage the practice, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills that communities groups, individual recognise as part of their precious legacy, social transmitted behaviour patterns, arts beliefs, institutions and all other products of human work and thought characteristics of a community. Museum are memory institution which organise cultural and intellectual record, it collections contain the memory of peoples, communities, institutions and individuals, the scientific and cultural heritage, and the products throughout time of our imaginations, crafts and learning. Museum librarians are trained to deal with problems of museum visitors information needs, promote cultural diversion, cultural creativity and continuity of tradition, ensuring that the right information resources are available at the right time and place whether visitors are inside or outside the museum. Museum librarian preserves a valuable record of culture that can be passed down to succeeding generation. Descriptive survey research type is the research design employed for this study. It primarily deals with the description of the nature or condition and the degree in detail of the present situation. Bringing the research design to bear on this study, an investigation into museum librarian as a tool of cultural heritage information in some museum in Nigeria in determine accessibility to cultural heritage information. Questionnaires are distributed to museum librarian, researchers, students and tourist at Eight museum libraries across Nigeria to collect for the study. Frequencies counts, percentages and tables are used to analyse the One hundred and seventy useable questionnaires receive. Findings, generalisation made and the conclusion drawn on the study are based on this analysis. The findings of this work reveal that museum librarian is a tool to cultural heritage information. Museum a fastest growing segment of the culture and tourism industry, a major pillar in transformation agenda of present Nigeria government as it is in many countries. Museum librarian would provide policy makers either a detailed score card of their cultural heritage competitiveness relative to its international counterparts. Museums are expected to engage professional librarian in cultural heritage information to enhance research and learning. Museums that do not have museum library stand the risk of decline in patronage for cultural heritage information, possibly extinction. Key words: Museum, Museum librarian, Cultural heritage. Word count: 391
2020
This study examines the fundamentals of effective management of cultural heritage information resources. Three research questions were developed to guide the study and a descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consists of all the staff of public libraries and museums in SouthEast , Nigeria. A total sample size of 379 respondents was selected using a simple random sampling technique. The researchers developed a questionnaire entitled "Effective Management of Cultural Heritage Information Resources Questionnaire (EMCHIRQ) for data collection. The instrument for data collection was trial-tested for reliability. A total 379 copies of the questionnaire were distributed to the respondents, out of which 361 were returned and found usable by the researchers. This gave a response rate of 95%. The data collected were analyzed using mean (X) and standard deviations to answer the research questions. Also T-test was used to test the hypotheses. Three null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study and were tested at 0.5 level of significance. Based on the data collected and analysed, the major finding of the study revealed that there is need for the proper management of cultural heritage information resources using basic management principles to achieve these goals. These principles of management are narrowed down to the basic functions of organizing, staffing and controlling as discussed in this study.
Challenges and Prospect of Museum Institutions in the 21st Century in Northern Nigeria
Journal of Social Sciences Advancement, 2022
The museum is one institution that accommodates every aspect of human activities and reminds people of their past to present. Most museum collections have been sustained by preserving and documenting natural and cultural heritage. Museum itself serve as an institution of learning, research has been conducted, and entertain different people with diverse cultural background without discrimination. Today, in Northern Nigeria, most people perceived museums as a place of fetish collections are stored rather than a multifunctional institution that deals with many sectors of life. Museums have the capacity to reflect both continuity and change, to preserve and protect cultural and natural heritage while illustrating the expression of the human imagination and the natural world through the exhibition. Museum in the 21st century has completely transformed due to the advancement of science and technology. But, Northern Nigeria is left behind in such technological development. The paper utiliz...
Library Philosophy and Practice, 2011
Introduction Efforts to preserve resources on cultural heritage have gained new momentum throughout the world nowadays. Protecting cultural heritage is economical, as well as historical and also a cultural process. While cultural heritage preservation has not yet become firmly rooted in the Nigerian consciousness as football is, a great number of people and organizations see cultural resources as critical to the nation's economic development through tourism. Cultural heritage is based on the aspects of our past that we cherish, want to keep and pass on to future generations and outside world. However, the economic benefits of preservation are secondary to the intrinsic value of that heritage which is been preserved. As rightly observed by Sekler (2001), "tangible cultural heritage has the great advantage over its intangible counterpart, such that with proper care it will remain authentic over centuries. As long as historic monuments remain without falsification and misleadi...
Library Exhibition: A Veritable tool for Promoting Collections and Services in Nigerian Libraries
This study investigated exhibition practices and challenges militating against it in Nigerian libraries. The study employed case study approach and 29 libraries were represented. Data collection instrument was a structured questionnaire which was administered at Nigeria Library Association (NLA) Cataloguing, Indexing and Classification Section workshop held in Makurdi, Benue State in year 2013, and method of data analysis was simple percentages. The study revealed that majority of Nigerian libraries (62.1%) were currently involved in exhibition and displays, 69% of libraries hold only physical exhibition, 45% frequently hold exhibitions between 3 – 6 months while others (58.6%) lasted between 1 – 4 weeks. The purpose of exhibition include: education, awareness, increased sense of aesthetic and promotion of available resources. Lack of exhibition policy (96.6%), lack of display equipment (93.1%), lack of formal training 86.2%, and inadequate resources – money, space (82.8%) were identified as inhibitors to library exhibition and displays in Nigeria. Physical exhibition and display is predominant. There is a need to explore the use of electronic resources, social networking sites and the Internet for online exhibition. The management of Nigerian libraries should provide exhibition guidelines, display equipment and materials needed for mounting exhibition, training for exhibit librarians and library schools should incorporate exhibition into the curriculum. Keywords: Exhibition, library service, Nigeria, Promotion, Exhibition Challenges
The study employed case study approach and 29 libraries were represented. Data collection instrument was a structured questionnaire which was administered at Nigeria Library Association (NLA) Cataloguing, Indexing and Classification Section workshop held in Makurdi, Benue State in year 2013, and method of data analysis was simple percentages. The study revealed that majority of Nigerian libraries (62.1%) were currently involved in exhibition and displays, 69% of libraries hold only physical exhibition, 45% frequently hold exhibitions between 3 -6 months while others (58.6%) lasted between 1 -4 weeks. The purpose of exhibition include: education, awareness, increased sense of aesthetic and promotion of available resources. Lack of exhibition policy (96.6%), lack of display equipment (93.1%), lack of formal training 86.2%, and inadequate resourcesmoney, space (82.8%) were identified as inhibitors to library exhibition and displays in Nigeria. Physical exhibition and display is predominant. There is a need to explore the use of electronic resources, social networking sites and the Internet for online exhibition. The management of Nigerian libraries should provide exhibition guidelines, display equipment and materials needed for mounting exhibition, training for exhibit librarians and library schools should incorporate exhibition into the curriculum.
Museums, libraries and archives: collaborating for the preservation of heritage materials in Nigeria
The survival of a nation's heritage materials depends, to a large extent, on the effectiveness of its preservation programme. Heritage institutions, therefore, have as one of their core activities the preservation of their collections. The experiences in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and some other countries have shown that this responsibility is better discharged through collaboration and networking among heritage institutions. The rapid development in digital technology and its attendant implication for access to and dissemination of information makes the need for collaboration imperative. An exploration of literature has revealed that the benefits of collaboration among heritage institutions are enormous while collaboration initiatives in developed parts of the world are well documented; little seems to be known about the initiatives in Nigeria. This study, therefore, investigates the heritage preservation collaboration initiatives of museums, libraries and archives with particular focus on the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (National Museums), the National Library and the National Archives of Nigeria. A survey research method was adopted for the study with questionnaire and interview as the research instruments. Curators, librarians and archivists from the three heritage institutions who constituted the target population were purposively sampled. The study revealed among other findings, little or no collaboration in most aspects of heritage perseveration among heritage institutions in Nigeria. Based on this finding, a case was made for active collaboration with strong government involvement, particularly in the area of funding.
International Journal of Applied Technologies in Library and Information Management 8 (2) , 2022
Libraries have been known to contain unique accumulation of human knowledge and experiences in the form of books and nonbook materials. The written and documentary heritage housed in libraries provides the raw materials that allow researchers to understand, explain and to enjoy the visible and invisible world around them. Access to the past enables one to understand and locate oneself in the present and gives opportunity to inform the future. Soy (2000) stated that preservation keeps materials alive, whole, and available for future use so that they can be used for as long as possible, first to document our heritage and society, and to guide others who will come in the future. Therefore, ensuring the integrity of such human heritage for posterity is of great interest to information professionals.
This study tries to ascertain the perceptions of University of Nigeria, Nsukka staff toward the preservation and global accessibility of Nigerian cultural heritage. This study employed a case study approach to collect data from lecturers in the cultural heritage conservation fields in the University and from academic librarians. A paper-based questionnaire was used to collect data from the university staff studied. The copies of the questionnaire were personally administered and collected by the researchers. Data collected were analyzed using Mean ( x ) and Standard Deviation (SD) and t-test was used to test the significance of the responses of staff on each of the questionnaire items. The results of this study reveal that the Nigerian heritage materials that should be globally accessible include songs and music, dance, written languages, religious doctrines and the intellectual aspects of religion. The study also found that access could be provided to these materials through the internet, cultural websites and cultural networks. The major problems facing the global accessibility of the nation’s cultural heritage include lack of efficient documentation of cultural heritage materials and absence of courses in cultural preservation and documentation. The most effective ways to improve the global access to the nation’s cultural heritage materials include strong political will, provision of internet facilities and a strong IT backbone. The new information environment requires that library operations should be handled electronically and globally. It also implies that library services should be globally available and accessible. This study enhances librarians’ understanding of the cultural heritage materials that should be preserved for global accessibility. The study not only identifies the nation’s cultural heritage materials that should be preserved but also how to make them globally available and accessible.