Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Librarians’ Registration Council of Nigeria (LRCN) has confirmed that the number of registered professional librarians in Nigeria has hit 6,796, following the induction of 330 new professionally qualified librarians.
Chief Executive Officer, LRCN, Prof. Michael Afolabi, who disclosed the information in Abuja, on Tuesday, at the 7th mandatory conference of certified librarians and 11th batch induction ceremony with the theme, “transforming libraries and librarianship” confirmed that the new inductees were librarians that met all the criteria required for the professional induction.
He, thus, charged new inductees to be good ambassadors of the profession, charging other unregistered librarians to find their way into the database of LRCN or risk unfriendly actions from the Council.
He said: “Most organizations are now implementing the Council’s policy on recruitment or promotion of only qualified and certified librarians. This implies that soon, there will be no job or promotion opportunity for graduates who are not certified by LRCN.”
Afolabi said the Council has finalized plan for the production of the minimum standards for school libraries in response to the poor state of school libraries in Nigeria.
He explained: “The standard will regulate the effective management of school libraries and professionals in the sector. All schools libraries are hereby called upon to adopt the new standards. We will not hesitate to deploy serious efforts to clamp down on non-compliant libraries and sanction defaulters.”
The Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, in his speech, thanked LRCN for expanding the frontiers of librarianship by injecting into the system, skilled, well equipped, qualified and certified librarians who offer world class services in different sectors of the economy.
Adamu who was represented by the Director of Library Services, Federal Ministry of Education, Barnabas Awunandu, also acknowledged the efforts of LRCN leadership in sanitizing the library profession by ensuring that only certified people are allowed to practice.
He assured the Council of the Ministry’s support to its reforms and other efforts that would ensure that only certified librarians are found at posts.
