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CHAPTER ONE

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Introduction

Oyegunle (2013) defines academic library as a library that is attached to academic institutions above the secondary school level, serving the teaching and research needs of students and staff which serve two complementary purposes to support the school curriculum and to support the research of the university faculty and students. As Otubelu (2010) observes, academic libraries in tertiary institutions occupy position as the hub of all academic activities and such libraries have always emerge almost simultaneously with the Libraries provide useful services to the user community by selecting, acquiring and organizing information sources which support the overall vision and mission of their parent institution. The development of an academic parent institutions library collection is not just the duty of the librarian but a cooperative effort between librarians, the teaching faculty and students. The philosophy of an academic library focuses on providing active learning spaces and diverse services to meet the various needs of the students, faculty staff and entire parent institution (Oyegunle, 2013). A deficient collection can have adverse implication for the institution. It is imperative that libraries should be developed to meet the aspirations of patrons. Achieving, this is becoming herculean. Funding has always been very great challenge to libraries. Libraries cannot on their own generate enough funds adequate to run their services. They depend on funds allocated from their parents’ institution and these funds are almost always inadequate to meet library needs. Impediments to library (circulation) services to the increase in information needs of users, and (cost of information resources) without a corresponding increase or provision of modern facilities. Lack of sufficient funds to build, procure and maintain basic infrastructure and equipment is real. Other challenges in recent times include digitalization of collections, electronic access, competition from online search engines, information literacy, value added services for ‘new students and faculty and the education and skills needed by today’s libraries to address these issues (Oyegunle, 2013). In the face of continued budget cuts and reduced allocation from governments and proprietary authorities to libraries, many self-help options have been contemplated. While Lawal (2002) opines “partial recovery of academic cost”, the process whereby the sources of the students, Popoola (2005) suggests that managers of information systems should embark on priced based information services which will enable them to recover their cost. He reiterated that libraries must be capable of generating revenue of possible making maximum profit using appropriate pricing policy and concluded that any good and service that is provided free is never valued.  The success of the implementation of this option has in our libraries has not been reported in the literature apart from moderate charges on photocopying, bindery services and library services fees paid in some institution. Another significant areas where libraries have also generated support for services from special grant-in-aids are donations/gifts from organizations, friends of the library fund raising campaigning and alumni support. An attempt is being made here to appraise the level to which grant-in-aids and donation and gifts are playing to support library funding and services in Cross River State, Nigeria.

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