Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1988, 35(1),11-19

THE TRAINING OF NON-PROFESSIONAL STAFF INNIGERIAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

The study, carried out in 1985 through aquestionnaire, examines the extent of trainingof non-professional staff in thirteen Nigerianfederal university libraries. Of the thirteenuniversities, only four can be said to operatemeaningful training programmes. They areAhmadu Bello University, Zaria; Universitiesof Lagos, Maiduguri and Sokoto. The firstthree universities possess prospectuses andwell-defined aims and objectives within theframework of the total university junior staffdevelopment arrangements. The quality oflibrary services rendered by the library juniorworkers in most Nigerian universities and alsothe future of these library staff who are unableto progress academically on their own, havebeen questioned.

INTRODUCTION

Of the three components that comprise alllibraries i.e., physical facilities, a collection oflibrary resources and personnel, personnelseems to me to be as equally important inbringing a library to life and in making it adynamic and vital force to the community itserves as the other components. The personnelare expected to be dedicated to the philosophyof service. They are expected to be guided bythe belief that their services will improve thequality of life and make the beneficiaries activeparticipating members of the society. Librarystaff operate under this basic principle. How-ever, the non-professional staff, in view of thelevel of education and method of recruitment,require some training to make them performtheir duties reasonably well.

Most of the professional staff can be arguedto have little time for training staff in the

Vol 35 No 1 March 1988

J.A. FAB. AKHIDIMEUniversity of MaiduguriMaiduguriNigeria.

variety of skills needed in a library. "Supervisorsteach the routines needed in a particular areaand are then reluctant to rotate their staff togiven them wider experience."[l] This perhaps,limits the usefulness and the awareness of thenon-professional staff.

Studying privately for the West AfricanSchool Certificate or the General Certificateof Education (GCE) examinations can be verydifficult for some staff. Yet, they need addi-tional qualifications for promotion purposes.

This group of library workers are expectedto relate more to the readers in many cases andare expected to perform to the optimum. Ifthey have to perform very well, they should beable to know why they should perform theirjobs and perform them well. In fact, often-times, the readers refer to them as 'librarians.'It is from them the readers and the generalpublic largely conceive what the image of alibrarian is in this country and in most partsof the world.

The Kaduna polytechnic, Kaduna, provides acourse for Senior Library Assistants. The courseis designated Assistant Library Officers Course.Although the course has its problems for acade-mic libraries, it certainly has its academic im-portance in filling the gap where internal train-ing programmes do not exist.

The programme might not take into con-sideration the differences in practice amonglibraries of various types and locations. Forinstance, it is required that to plan a programme,there must be a familiarity with the routinesused in all libraries sending staff to the course.It would, therefore, be unrealistic to standardizethe procedures used in all these libraries. Thisis why the Kaduna course cannot be said tosatisfy all libraries.

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On the other hand, internal training pro-gramme ensures that no staff jumps the queueto rush himself through a course to come backto boss his seniors who are not as 'smart' or as'privileged' as himself. This happens mainly inestablishments where administrative proceduresare not very well stream-lined.

DEVELOPMENT OF TRAINING PROGRAM-MES FOR NON-PROFESSIONALS IN UNI-VERSITY LIBRARIES

There have been some early attempts to trainnon-provessional staff. John Harris, in order toimprove the skills of his junior Nigerian staff,organised the first formal in-service trainingcourse at the Ibadan University College Libraryin August 1950. This programme was entitled,"Training course for Native Authority Libra-rians, and was attended by thirty Native Autho-rity Library Attendants, and fifteen Attendantsand Assistants from the University CollegeLibrary." [2) It was the earliest attempt attraining non-professional staff in Nigeria ingeneral, and in a university library in particular.The training helped in the understanding of theconcept of the library and it helped participantsin upgrading library services in their variouslocations.

The Unesco Seminar held in the Universityof Ibadan in 1953 culminated in the inaugura-tion of the West African Library Association(WALA) in 1954 with John Harris as the Presi-dent. Thus, the training of non-professionalstaff on an in-service basis was stopped at theUniversity of Ibadan by John Harris becausehe had to pay greater attention to professionaltraining.

In the mid 1960s, Ronald Cave of AhmaduBello University, Zaria, was said to have pre-pared some library staff for the Library Asso-ciation examinations. However, the impact ofthe training in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria,lasted till 1975/76 Session when the last batchof junior serving staff sat for the Library Asso-ciation examinations on their own.

It was during this period i.e. 1975/76Session, the concept of an internal trainingprogramme to give.another means of evaluationfor promotion and to encourage staff to learnabout the total operations of the library, wasdeveloped in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.Miss Lorna Reevely, a member of the CanadianUniversity Service Overseas (CUSO), was ap-

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pointed a Training Officer. It was at this timethat the University of Lagos thought of atraining programme as part of the continuingeducation courses in the University.

METHODOLOGY

So far, there are three generations of federaluniversities in Nigeria. The first (6 Universities)were those established before 1970 are: theUniversities of Benin, Ibadan, !fe, Lagos,Nigeria and the Ahmadu Bello University. Thesecond (seven Universities) established in 1975are Bayero University, Universities of Calabar,Ilorin, Jos, Maiduguri, Port Harcourt and Sokoto.The third generation, (seven Universities) are:Federal Universities of Technology - Akure,Minna, Owerri and Abeokuta, Bauchi, Makurdiand Yola, last four have been reduced andmerged with adjacent federal universities. (Atthe time of going to the press arrangementswere being made to demerge or to return themto their original autonomous status).

There are seven Universities established bysome state governments. These are AnambraState University of Technology, Enugu, BendelState University, Ekpoma; Cross River StateUniversity, Uyo; Imo State University of Tech-nology, Okigwe; Lagos State University, Lagos;Ogun State University, Ago-Iwoye; and RiversState University of Technology, Port-Harcourt.All the seven universities were established after1975. In fact, one could regard these as thefourth generation of Universities in Nigeria.

The 13 Federal Universities from first andsecond generation were studied for the purposeof this study. These Universities were the onesthat have had more than ten years to settledown and to develop an internal training pro-gramme for non-professional staff.

The study was carried out by administeringquestionnaires to the subject (13 Federal Uni-versities) through post.

The questionnaires sought to examine thefollowing major characteristics:

a. Age of the training programme - since whenwas the programme established?

b. The spread of the training i.e. does the pro-gramme provide for the three levels of staffthat require it, ego Library Attendants,Library Assistants, and for the LibraryAssistants?

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TRAINING LIBRARY STAFF IN NIGERIA

c. Duration of the course and the number ofcontact hours etc.

d. The syllab.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

This study came up with the following findings:

a) Of the 13 University Libraries assessed, theUniversity of Benin and the University ofNigeria, Nsukka, did not respond. The remaining11 have training programmes of one sort oranother except the University of Ife (nowObafemi Awolowo University, lle-Ife), whichhas not got an instructional programme at all(Table 1).

b) The older Universities of Ibadan and Lagos,and the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, estab-lished training programmes for their non-professional staff before 1979. Of the sevennew universities that responded, only theUniversities 'of Sokoto and Port Harcourtestablished their programmes before 1980, i.e.,five years after the establishment of the insti-tutions.

The older the University, the more confidentit becomes in approaching problems like trainingof junior staff. A new university would requiremore time to settle down. It is not surprisingtherefore that Ibadan (Est. 1948), Zaria (Est.1962) and Lagos (Est. 1962) had training pro-gramme functioning before 1979. University ofIbadan however, has not gone beyond a re-fesher course type of programme which lastsfor six weeks only and there is no elaborateprospectus.

The major problem area in university estab-lishment is in the junior cadre. Some staff areemployed with the First School Leaving Certi-ficate and others with Secondary School Certi-ficate.

The first category are employed as LibraryAttendants II on USS 1 (NI560-NI7'/6) andthey, in most cases, cannot be advanced beyondLibrary Attendant I on USS 2 (NI620-NI908)without 'additional qualifications.' There hasnot been any reason for this posture other thanthat the jobs they perform are not skilled. Itis this problem that necessitated the arrange-ment for training programmes especially whenit has become difficult to promote long-serving

Vol 35 No 1 March 1988

and efficient staff.The Secondary School Leavers who could

not pass their examinations are also employedas Library Attendant I on USS 2 (NI620-NI908). Most of them are certainly betterthan the First School Leaving Certificate candi-dates. But they are also not usually consideredfor promotion until they have shown evidenceof additional qualifications.

Even when Secondary School candidatesare employed, some of them require someurging to make progress. It is as a result of allthese handicaps that training programmesbecame necessary.

c) Only two of the respondents, i.e., AhmaduBello University, Zaria, and University ofMaiduguri indicated that their programmeswere organized for the Library Attendants,Assistants and the Senior Library Assistants.No respondent indicated that there was aprogramme for Assistant Library Officers. Thisis understandable because at this level, candi-dates are expected to be aspiring for training inthe library school at the diploma level.

Three Universities, Ibadan, Sokoto andCalabar have training programmes for LibraryAttendants and Assistants. Three universitiesalso have training programmes for LibraryAssistants only. The institutions are the Uni-versities of Jos and Lagos and Bayero Univer-sity. The University of Port-Harcourt has a pro-gramme for Library Attendants only. TheUniversity of llorin organises a programmegrouping all categories of non-professional staff.The Ilorin, Ibadan, Jos and Port-Harcourtcourses appear more like a 'refresher course'than a training programme, since they last fornot more than six weeks and can easily beaccommodated in the long break.

d) Out of the 11 respondents, only three - Uni-versities of Maiduguri and Sokoto and AhmaduBello University, Zaria, have their courses for aperiod of one year. Lagos, Bayero and Calabarhave their courses lasting up to six months,although Calabar has since withdrawn the coursebecause of lack of funds. Others, four of them,have their courses lasting from two to six weeks.

e) Most of the courses have four to five contacthours per week and some teaching is done afterworking hours. In this case, teachers are remune-rated for work done outside working hours

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-~ Table 1

Representation of Training Programmes for Non-professionals in Nigerian Universities (1985)

S/Noe Spread of Isuniversity Inception of Programme to Duration of Prospectus for No. of Contact ,Total No. of

programme junior library Programme Profrar.tme Hours per week GraduatesPositions available?

1. A.B.U., zaria 1975 Lib. Attendant/Lib. Assistant/ one year yes four hours 253Senior Lib. Asst.

2. Bayero University 1983 Library Assistant ~ year Not available Not available 28Kano

3. Calabar 1981 Lib. Attendant/Lib. Asst1stant ~ year Yes four hours 51

4. Ibadan 1976 Lib. Attendant/Lib. Assistant six week No Not available 67

5. Ife Nil Nil Nil Nil Nil Nil

6. Ilorin 1983 Grouped programmefor Lib. Attd. & four weeks Yes five hours 23Assistants

7. Jos Not available Lib. Assistant two weeks Hot avuilable Not available Not available

80 Lagos 1975 Lib. Assistant ~ year Yes five hours Not available

9. Maiduguri 1980 Libo Attd./Lib.Asst. (Snr. Lib. one year Yes four hours 21Asst., 1986)

100 Port Harcourt 1978 Lib. Attendent b..•o weeks Hot available Not available 22

11. Sokoto 1979 Lib. Attendant/Lib. Assistant one to two years Not available Not available 43

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TRAINING LIBRARY STAFF IN NIGERIA

although the library has to fight its way throughto get their teachers paid. Ahmadu Bello Uni-versity and University of Maiduguri offered theirprogrammes without remunerations in the firstfew years of the programmes.

f) Five universities have prospectuses for theircourses. Bayero claimed that she has but did notattach a copy to the questionnaire. Zaria andMaiduguri have full-time training officers.However, they have some other library assign-ments too. Lagos runs its courses as part of theContinuing Education Centre programme, usinglibrarians as teachers.

g) Very few libraries cater for training at differ-ent levels of :

Library AttendantLibrary AssistantSenior Library Assistant

The finding in the spread of programme tothese levels is not encouraging. A possibleexplanation is that once a candidate has beenpromoted or appointed to the rank of LibraryAssistant, he can be advanced to AssistantLibrary Officers position in most libraries. Therespondents' coverage of Library Attendant'straining are more, i.e. 8.

h) The more contact hours there are in a pro-gramme the more workload a candidate isexpected to carry. Therefore, courses that aretaught in two weeks with four contact hoursper week have less workload than courses thatwould last for fifty-two weeks with the samenumber of contact hours per week. The Univer-sities in Zaria, Maiduguri and Sokoto are, there-fore, more likely to be better qualitatively. Theyhave courses lasting up to one year and more.The course outline in the University of Lagosis very impressive, so also are the quality ofstaff who teach on the programme.

ANALYSIS OF THE PROGRAMME INLAGOS, MAIDUGURI AND ZARIA

Since the Universities of Lagos and Maiduguriand the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, havewell structured programmes, it is pertinent totake a closer look at them and analyse themcritically.

The University of Lagos has outlined itscourses into 23 headings. When grouped, they

Vol 35 No 1 March 1988

fall into six major categories of Administra-tion, Readers' Services, Collection Develop-ment, Cataloguing, Special Collection andSerials. Computer applications in libraries hasbeen introduced into the programme at theUniversity of Lagos. This is done with a view tofamiliarizing participants with modem techno-logical development and its applicability tolibrary operations.

In the early days of the programme at theAhmadu Bello University, Zaria, the six cate-gories of library work as contained in that ofLagos were emphasized. The media was sadlynot mentioned at all. This was probably be-cause there were no media facilities then.

The current programme at Ahmadu BelloUniversity, Zaria is even better and the Univer-sity of Maiduguri seems to imitate.[3,4]Heartily enough, the non-book materials havebeen treated at every appropriate stage of thecourses, but for reasons the writer is unable toexplain, the Serials have been grossly omitted.Junior staff also work in the Serials Division orSection as they do in other parts of the library.It is unimaginable that both Ahmadu BelloUniversity, Zaria and the University of Maidu-guri would have dropped this course in theperiod of their enthusiastic re-development oftheir programmes.

However, the teaching of functional Englishand Human Relations as a two-hour-course perweek throughout the duration of the programmeat Ahmadu Bello University and University ofMaiduguri is a welcome innovation yet this isabsent in the Lagos Programme. What shouldbe done, therefore, is for the Universities con-cerned to have a second look at their pro-grammes to inject what is possibly useful tothem. Perhaps, the Lagos programme may notneed the English language course after all,because their course is meant for Library Assis-tants and it is assumed that they would nothire Library Assistant without requisite numberof passes including English language at theGeneral Certificate of Education (GCE) or WestAfrican School Certificate (WASC).

If the University of Lagos decides to expendtheir programme to the level of AssistantLibrary Officers like Ahmadu Bello University,Zaria and the University of Maiduguri, thenEnglish Language and Human Relations shouldbe taught.

Another fact is that the Zaria and Maidu-guri programmes gloss over Special Collections

I;)

which can easily be noted in that of Lagosbecause of the fonner's broad groupings fromwhich detail course schemes were to be workedout. The broad courses of :

Library Organisation,Cataloguing and Classification, andReference Service

with a rider that "functional English and HumanRelations course" (though this was well speltout) are not enough. There is, therefore, a needfor constant review of programmes.

THE JOURNEY SO FAR

The Zaria programme is easy to evaluate, bothfrom the number of staff so far trained, and thequality of their output. The advantage of theAhmadu Bello University programme was thatit had a full-time staff for two years to plan andexecute the programme using senior librarystaff as teachers. The full-time staff was deter-mined to see that the programme succeeded.When she left, two Heads of Divisions coordi-nated the programme consecutively until a full-time Training Officer was appointed. The pre-sence of a full-time staff gave impetus to theprogramme and it accounted for its success.

The students appreciated that they werenot only learning something, but that they hada chance in life once more. They therefore, tookup the challenge and were determined tosucceed. The quality of the products in Zaria, inthe opinion of the writer, is very impressive.

The University of Maiduguri· programmehas now been given the required backing fromthe authority. There is a full-time TrainingOfficer in the Education and InformationDivision. It is expected that the quality of theproducts will now improve. The Lagos andSokoto . Universities seemed to make somestrides. The rest of the universities covered bythis study need to expand the scope of theirtraining in terms of developing prospectuses,spreading the courses, extending the duration ofprogrammes as well as the number of contacthours.

As far as the writer knows, it is the policyof most Nigerian universities not to sponsornon-professional staff for a degree programme.But there. is provision for sponsorship fordeserving staff for a diploma course. Thisarrangement allows for a gradual progression of

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AKHIDIME

a non-professional staff to be trained for a sub-professional position and thereafter, such astaff can be sponsored for a degree programme.

Perhaps, this arrangement does not ade-quately cater for 'flyers' who could have con-veniently been trained for a degree programme.But judging from the criteria for obtainingsponsorship, which include the following:

a) Candidates must have served for a requirednumber of years usually not less than twoyears;

b) Candidates' appointments should have beenconfirmed (and this takes place after twoyears or more),

c) Candidates should have gained admissioninto institutions recognized by the Univer-sity concerned.

It is difficult for 'flyers' to wait to fulfil all thecriteria before going for a training.

CONSLUSIONThe need for training of non-professional staffhas been identified and a description of whatconstitutes training programmes in some univer-sity libraries has been made. It is envisaged thatother university libraries not covered by thisstudy (there are thirteen of them) would havesomething to borrow from the training pro-grammes described in this paper in developingtheir own programmes.

The point that should be stressed is thatdeveloping an internal training programme isprobably the quickest means of developing theessential skills and ensuring the promotion ofnon-professional and less privileged junior staff.It is also a means of developing an attitudetowards academic or some basic education tobe build upon later.

In some Nigerian university libraries wherethere are no internal training programmes, thelibrary authorities find it difficult to determinewhat to do with their staff in terms of promo-tion. This problem is still a subject of discussionin the Committee of University Librarians. Theimplications of this study are, therefore:

a) Nigerian university libraries understand theneed for training their non-professionalstaff, yet many of them have not taken thetraining of this category of staff very serious-ly.

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TRAINING LIBRARY STAFF IN NIGERiA

b) The writer feels strongly that there is needfor the hannonisation of the programmes,recognising that there will be local modifi-cation in their applications.

2. Aguolu, C.C.: Problems facing the library pro-fession in Nigeria: A paper presented at theLibrary and Information Science week, Univer-sity of Maiduguri, Maiduguri, 28th-29th june,1985, pp.4-5. (Mimeographed).

c) The writer, therefore, calls on the Com-mittee of University Librarians of NigerianUniversities (CULNU) to set up a Com-mittee on the hannonisation of trainingprogrammes in university libraries as amatter of urgency.

3. Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria: Kashim IbrahimLibrary junior Staff Training Programme: Pros-pectus, 1982 (Mimeographed).

REFERENCES4. University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri: Ramat

Library junior Staff Training Programme: Pros-pectus, 1985.

1. Revely, Lorna: The trammg of non-professionalstaff in a Nigerian academic library. NigerianLibraries 1976, 12(1), 72.

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Appendix - I

TRAINING OF NON-PROFESSIONAL STAFF IN THE UNIVERSITY UBRARIES IN NIGERIA

QUESTIONNAIRE

(Non-professional staff refers to Library Attendants/Library Assistants/Senior Library Assistantsand Assistant Library Officers.)

(Training programme refers to a well developed instructional programme for non-professionals.)

Please tick or cancel appropriate columns in this questionnaire.

1. Has you library a training programme? Yes/No.

2. For how long does the programme last: 6 months, 1 year, Ilh years or 2 years?

3. a) Do you have an instructional prospectus?

b) If 'Yes' please enclosed a copy.

Yes/No.

4. At what level do you operate the courses :

Library Attendants ( )

Library Assistants ( )

Senior Library Assistants ( )

Assistant Library Officers ( )

5. Please indicate the cadre of staff that attend each course,e.g., Library Assistants' course attended by Library Attendants.

Library Attendants' course

Library Assistants' course ------------------------

Senior Library Assistants' course ---------------------

Assistant Library Officers' ceurse

6. When did the training programme start?

7. NUmber of graduants at each level in the past five years and percentage of passes;

1980/81 1981/82 1982/83 1983/84 1984/85

Library Attendants' course

Library Assistants' course

Sr. Lib. Assistants' course

Asst. Lib. Officers' course

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TRAINING LIBRARY STAFF IN NIGERIA

8. a) Is there a full-time Training Officer? Yes/No.

b) If 'Yes' whatishis/herposition?---------------------

c) If 'No' who takes charge of the programme? -----------------

9. a) How many teachers teach in the programme? ----------------

b) Are the teachers paid when they teach outside working hours? Yes/No.

10. Please, indicate in brief what the objectives of the programme are :

a)

b)

c)

d)

e)

11. a) Have non-professional staff been sponsored for a degree programme by the library?YesfNo.

h) If 'Yes' how many have been sponsored in the last five (5) years?

c) If 'No' why? ----------------------------

12. a) Havenon-professional staff been sponsored for the Diploma programme? Yes/No.

b) If'Yes'howmany?--------------------------

c) If 'No' why? ----------------------------.

Thank you for finding time to fill the questionnaire.

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