1. ISSUES IN SETTING-UP E-LIBRARY
IN NIGERIA
James O. Daniel, FNLA, CLN, PhD, MALS (Mich.USA)
BLS (ABU, Nig.)
Former Librarian @ the National Mathematical Centre,
Abuja, Nigeria
President, West African Library Associations, WALA
Pioneer Chairman, Librarians’ Registration Council of
Nigeria,
Former President of NLA
Former, Secretary, IFLA Africa Section

2. ISSUES IN SETTING UP E-LIBRARY
 Being a paper presented at the TETFUND e-library
Training Workshop for Colleges of
Education in Nigeria September, 2014

3. ABSTRACT
 What is digital library? What are the issues and
challenges in setting –up e library ?
 This paper provides an overview of digital libraries
and sums up some IFLA research outcome on
issues from the e-library settings world wide
 Resolutions of these issues are attempted as way
forward

4. WHAT IS E-LIBRARY ?
 lots of confusion surround the phrase ‘electronic
library’ and ‘digital library’
 because the library community has used several
different phrases over the years to denote the
electronic library concept
 virtual library, library without walls-and it was never
quite clear what each of these different phrases
meant
 "Digital library" is simply the most widely accepted
term used almost exclusively at conferences, online,
and in the literature, contemporarily e-library- is
gaining ground.

5. E-library from Varied Perspectives
 Factors adding to the confusion is that digital libraries are at the
focal point of many different areas of research
 what constitutes a digital library differs depending upon the
research community that is describing it.
 from an information retrieval point of view, it is a large database
 for people who work on hypertext technology, it is one
particular application of hypertext methods
 for those working in wide-area information delivery, it is an
application of the Web
 and for library science, it is another step in the continuing
automation of libraries that began over 25 years ago

6. IS THE WEB AN E-LIBRARY
 A fairly spectacular example of what many
people consider to be a digital library today is
the World Wide Web –www-
 the Web is a gathering of millions and
millions of documents
 To many, this huge collection is a digital
library because they can find information, just
as they can do banking in a "digital bank”
 is the Web a digital library? NO! (Lynch 2002)

7. THE WORLD WIDE WEB IS NOT A LIBRARY
 Sometimes the Internet characterized as the
world's library for the digital age. This description
cannot stand even under a casual examination.
The Internet collection of multimedia resources
known as the World Wide Web was not designed
to support the organized publication and retrieval
of information as libraries are.
It has evolved into a chaotic repository for the
collective output of the world's digital "printing
presses."..In short, the Net is not a digital library.

8. LIBRARARIAN’S DEFINITION OF E-LIBRARY
 So what is a working definition of “e-library"
that makes sense to librarians?
 the American Digital Library Federation came
up with a similar notion of “e library with
emphasis on the traditional underpinnings of
libraries-selection, access, and preservation-as
well as the fact that e libraries will
necessarily be set-up to serve particular
communities

9. The E-Library
 Electronic libraries are organizations that
provide the resources, including the
specialized staff, to select, structure, offer
intellectual access to, interpret, distribute,
preserve the integrity of, and ensure the
persistence over time of collections of digital
works so that they are readily and
economically available for use by a defined
community or set of communities.

10. What are the Issues & Challenges in
Creating e-library
The integration of digital media into
traditional collections is not
straightforward like video and
audio tapes because of the unique
nature of e-information
It is less fixed, easily copied,
remotely accessible by multiple
users simultaneously.

11. TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE ISSUES
 Enhancement and upgrading of current
technical architectures to accommodate e-materials.
 The architecture components includes:
 high-speed local networks and fast connections
to the Internet
 relational databases that support a variety of e-formats

12. Technical Architecture Cont’
 full text search engines to index and provide
access to resources
 a variety of servers, such as Web servers
and FTP servers
 bibliographic databases that point to both
paper and digital materials
 indexes and finding tools
 collections of pointers to Internet resources

13. The Issue of Staff: The Right Staff
 getting the right staff is a major issue in e library in Nigeria
 just as it was in the developed world when they stepped into electronic
library system.
• Information professionals take on a wider variety of roles requiring a
broader range of skills than ever before and
• far more than their exposures at the Library Schools.
• A number of e-Lib projects have successfully highlighted these issues
Pinfield (2009). issues include how e library staff are obtained, trained
and retained in order to carry out this work.
• E-library projects in Nigeria are most likely to have problems recruiting
and retaining staff with the right skills across the sector because the
Library Schools do not offer relevant courses at the moment.
• staffing structures which are currently biased in favour of traditional
library roles.

14. The Issue of e-Librarian’s New
and Required Roles
 Issues of the e-librarian definitive and specialised roles (Daniel,
2013) :
 Innovator –looking at improved ways to procure access
 Fund-raiser – working for greater income from within the
institution and beyond
 Metadata producer – creating records of information sources in
a variety of schemas
 Communicator – formally and informally liaising with users
 Team player – working with colleagues in e library, IT services
and academics , technologist s
 Advocacy

15. New and Required Roles
 Multi-media user – comfortable with a wide range of formats
 Intermediary – with a good knowledge of sources and user
requirements
 Enabler – proactively connecting users with information they
require
 Trainer / educator – taking on a formal role to teach information
skills and information literacy
 Evaluator – sifting free and paid for resources on behalf of
users
 Negotiator – dealing with publishers and suppliers
 Project manager – leading on development projects to enhance
the service

16. New Required Skills
 Technical and IT skills
 Ability to learn quickly
 Analytical and evaluative skills
 Subject skills in-depth
 Project management skills
 Vision & Mission formulation and implementation
 Communication skills
 Negotiating skills and Bargaining
 Ability to work under pressure

17. Electronic acquisitions have to fit into the overall provision. One major issue here is the balance between print and electronic The Issue of e resources development
Policies
 Creating an integrated collection
 e-development policy covering all media is
an important issue in e-library.
 e- acquisitions have to fit into the overall
provision.
 issue of balance between print and e-services.
 clear criteria for e-selection, digitisation
 group to make e-acquisition decisions

18. Professional skills
Flexibility
People centred skills
Presentation skills
Teaching skills
Team working skills
Customer service skills
Hardware skills- technical knowledge
software skills - vision.

19. Acquisition Issue
 The selection and acquisition process far
more complex for e-materials
 liaising with suppliers,
 organising trials and demonstrations,
 formal evaluation
 acquisition of e-resources can often take
longer than the print
 It can however sometimes frustrate the
expectations of users.

20. Licensing
 The relationship between publishers and
libraries is changing because of the e-resources.
 movement from the use of resources
determined by public law (copyright and fair
dealing) to private agreement (licenses).
 License agreements are private
arrangements between two parties.
 They place the provider in a much stronger
position to specify how the information is

21. The Issue of Pricing
 The e-library pricing models and the variation
 e-journals is a typical example.
 Should price be based on use? If so, how is
use determined?
 Should it be based on size of user
community? If so, how is size calculated?
 there is need for caution here by e-librarians
in creating alternative formulae.

22. e-library is More
Expensive than Paper
 e-library is expensive
 lessons of e-lib may not necessarily save
money but space
 e-journal may cost more on top of existing
paper subscriptions
 added issue of VAT which may be
chargeable for e-resources while prints may
be exempt.

23. OTHER ISSUES & ISSUES
 Institutional funding Issues
 Issue of Priorities
 Systems & technical issues of Integration
 Cross searching and linking
 Issue of Authentication, Authorisation &
Personalisation
 Issue of Management –everything management
 Issue of Content creation
 The Issue of Digital Preservation and Changes in format
 User issues: Marketing, Training and Liaison
 Organisational issues

24. Concluding Thoughts
 Nigeria has the potential to harvest the enormous change in
library and information services across the world, especially the
initiatives from e-library which can facilitate leapfrogging
national development. In the Changes expected to set in the
next decade, libraries are going to be more relevant than ever
as, innovative organisations for stable services and
unfathomable access to information . Achieving this will involve
energetic technical and content development and also involve
developing libraries with the right staff, with the right skills, working in
the right structures. It is in this way that we will be better able to
support the transformation agenda and vision 20:20:20. as a
sector. Library Schools must surely diversify and do more in the
area of e-curricula and re-tooling

25. THANK YOU
 THANK YOU FOR LISTENING
 GOD BLESS
 ANY QUESTIONS?
 e-mail: jimidaniel@yahoo.com
 jimidaniel@gmail.com
 Mobile: 08033116409