CONTENTS
Resources and Services of a Special Library: A Case of a Medical Library
in Nigeria
BISI BABAFEMI
244
ii
Resources and Services of a Special Library: A
Case of a Medical Library in Nigeria
BISI BABAFEMI
The importance of medical libraries resources and services to
the already established medical schools in Nigeria is highlighted. And
the need to improve and to provide such resources and services is
discussed, for medical schools to achieve aims and objectives of their
establishments and to be able to fulfil the aims and objectives of the
parent institution, there is need to meet the requirement of medical
schools through their libraries. This article examines the situation
facing most of the medical schools in Nigeria and suggests that
something needs to be done by the government in order to achieve the
"Health Far All" campaign by the year 2000 or 2010. The author
suggests some solutions which will help in addressing the problems
facing medical libraries in Nigeria.
0
INTRODUCTION
Health services is very important to a nation and it is one of the
areas of great concern to the government and it relates to other institution
of education, economy and politics.
The primary objective of the Federal Government of Nigeria is to
achieve health for all by the year 2000 AD. Little wonder that the
government devoted abuse amount of money through the Petroleum Trust
Fund (PTF) to purchasing of drugs to solve health related problems of the
people. And also budgeted a sum of N2, 623790.000 (US $327,993,75 at
the rate of N80 to a US $) for health and social services during the 1997
budget.
In developing countries like Nigeria, the urge for specialized
information system in medical field need not to be over-emphasised. The
role of library services to the education of medical personnel in promoting
and maintaining health care for the citizens of the nations in order to
achieve this important goal of producing health manpower in Nigeria also
cannot be over-emphasized.
These specialized institutions need information from bibliographic
sources on health related issues for successful performance of health care
workers. Bibliographic service, which is an aspect of reference work is
meant to enable users have access to
_____________________
* Librarian II. University of Ilorin Library, PMB 1515, Ilorin, Nigeria.
LIBRARY HERALD
information resources both within and outside the library, relevant to their
information needs.
These specialized institutions require access to current and specific
information in order to justify their existence and perform their roles
effectively.
The role of a medical library is "to collect and organise recorded
information in medicine and allied subjects in terms of the clientele
needs". The library has an important part to play in providing these
material resources for teaching and research needs.
The need for medical schools to have current and specific
information in order to justify their existence proves the fact that the
resources and services of such medical school libraries are very important
and necessary.
The major concern of a medical library is adequacy of the
resources and services needed for the satisfaction of the users. Therefore,
the objective of this study is to examine the resources and services of
University of Ilorin Medical Library in other to know whether the
resources are adequate or otherwise and whether the services are
efficiently delivered.
I
PREVIOUS STUDIES
Quite a number of articles have appeared on special libraries but
the most relevant ones to this study are those that relate to the medical
libraries. Most of the articles are written by medical librarians and medical
experts, having recognised the usefulness of libraries to medical schools.
Sewell' has pointed out that the medical library needs to transmit
information to the students and researchers in the field of medicine. This
can only be done if there is a well organised information centre like library
to cater for such needs. Hence, the need for well equipped and well
maintained medical libraries. The need also involves the services which
Iruoje2, who wrote on bibliographic services in College of Medicine
libraries, has listed to include local courier and regular maintenance of
such service to improve the inter-library lending services. She went further
to suggest the use of MEDLARS in medical libraries.
There is no library without its own problems. The medical libraries
have their own too, according to Oluwakuyide', budgeting control, nonavailability of desired literature and transportation are some of such
problems.
Cunningham4, identified the importance of medical literature to the
advancement of medicine and also the professional career of its
practitioners. The medical personnel has to be well informed before he can
practise effectively. This is made possible through current and up-to-date
information sources. Kossa5, based his own observations on human
resources in a medical library, saying that money and adequate staff can
improve the quality of a medical library collections. This implies that a
professionally qualified medical librarian is needed for better services in a
medical library.
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On a general note, Oluwakuyide and Afolabi", have the same view
on the problems of special libraries of which medical libraries is one, that
the problems of special libraries can be attributed to uncooperative
management, inadequate funds, lack of skilled staff and limited resources
as major hindrance to special libraries from performing effective services
such as current awareness services (CAS), selective dissemination of
information (SDI) services, bibliographic services, indexing and
abstracting services.
11 THE PROBLEM
It is easy to establish libraries but to finance, equip, organise,
manage and maintain them properly and provide adequate library service
to patrons is a difficult task. The massive establishment of University
Teaching Hospitals in Nigeria brought with it the establishment of medical
schools and their libraries, which has led to the problem of coping with the
resources and services needed to function effectively.
12 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Considering the above problem, the study seeks to answer the following
research
questions,
(1) Are the resources provided effectively utilized?
(2) Are the resources and services adequately provided?
(3) Are the aims and functions of the library realized through the services
to users?
(4) Are the needs and objectives of the institution being met by the
library?
(5) What arc the problems facing the Library?
(6) What are the possible solutions to the problems?
13 METHODOLOGY
The University of Ilorin Medical Library was chosen in an attempt
to study the resources and services using questionnaires as an instrument.
The questionnaires were administered to three categories of persons
namely; the medical librarian, faculty academic staff and the medical
students. The total number of questionnaires distributed were 110, only
102 were returned which represents 93%.
The analysis of the data collected is in simple tables and
percentages.
The Faculty of Health Sciences Medical Library Objective'7
The Medical Library which started at the same time with the faculty itself
has the following objectives to fulfil.
(1) The library aims at providing services that will help researches into
various disciplines that are medically inclined. Suitable reading
materials on medical sciences to fulfil this objective will be
provided.
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(2)
Promoting teaching through provision of basic text books on medical
sciences and inter-related disciplines.
(3) Developing the medical and paramedical students intellectually by
providing forum, organising seminars, inaugural lectures,
workshops, symposium on regular basis in conjuction with the
faculty.
(4) To maintain co-operative relationship with other libraries.
(5) To give instruction in the use of library to its members.
(6) To provide bibliographic services and reference services.
To fulfil the objectives, following is the outline of the functions of
the medical library.
(1)
Developing a comprehensive collection of books, journals,
periodicals and other publications for its clientele in the area of
medical sciences.
(2)
Maintaining and organising its resources to the advantages of its
users.
(3)
To disseminate currently published information through library
bulletin, accession list, CAS and SDI.
(4) Teaching users the use of the library and answering of queries posed
by users.
(5)
Maintaining of reference services such as MEDLINES, Quick
reference services.
(6) Circualtion of books among users (loan sevices).
(7) Compilation of bibliogarphies.
2 ANALYSIS Adequacy of materials
From the data collected and analysed, 91% of the users population was of
the opinion that the library materials are indequate. This inadequacy may
be attributed to lack of funds. Most journals in stock are obsolete. About
53% respondants indicated their dissatisfaction on journals provision. As a
result 14% respondants advocated that library should subscribe to more
journal titles. About 14% indicated that subscription should be paid for
new and regular journal titles. That 4% respondants suggested that
subscription should be made to as many as possible while another 4%
indicated that existing journals should be continued to be subscribed.
Table 1 Adequacy of Library material
Responses
Number
Percentages
Adequate
7 93
6.0 91.0
Inadequate No
3.0
response
102
100.0
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Table 2 Satisfaction of Journal/Periodical Useage
Table 3 below shows that majority of the library users do not use
journals/periodicals. This may be due to their obsolete nalure. There are
other factors associated with lack of journal/periodical usage. From the
data analysed, it was found that 11.8% indicated that useful journals are
not available, while 15.7% indicated that those available are not
accessible. About 17.6% say they don't know their existence while 5.9%
said they do not know how to make use of the journals.
Table 3 Use of Journals and Periodicals
Responses
Number
Percentage
Those who use 46
45.1
journals
Those who don’t 52
51.0
use
No response
4
3.9
102
100.0
Table 4 below shows that the total staff for the medical library is 5. Two
messenger/cleaners, 2 library assistants and I professional with no
qualification in any of the medical sciences, there was no paraprofessional
at all.
Table 4 Adequacy of Staff
Year
Professional
Paraprofess Non
ional
Professional
1995 1
4
1996 1
4
1997 1
4
The importance of good staffing in a library like this cannot be
over-emphasized. A good staff will improve the collections. The number,
experience and training of the staff of library will directly influence the
quality of services the library can provide.
Although in a special library, the emphasis is not on many staff
members but at
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least those employed should be competent to handle the stock and
provide adequate services. The professional staff especially should be a
trained medical librarian,
Thornton* commented that "a trained medical Librarian should
supervise the medical collections". His opinion is that a medical librarian
must have knowledge of medical sciences and librarianship and to further
fulfil professional function, the medical librarian must be encouraged to
further his-education.
This point was laid in one of the objectives of the Medical Library
Association of USA which states that "It is the aim of the medical library
to assist and further education, research programmes of the professional
staff.
Compell has recommended a basic stock of 10,000 and 250
periodicals titles for special library. From the above the library under
study appears just to managed to reach the recommended number which
further needs to improve as time goes on.
3 CONCLUSION
Considering the above write-up, it is glaring that most of the
medical libraries in Nigeria are not treated as special, because most
resources and services are not adequate. Few of the medical libraries are
trying to statisfy their clientele by meeting few of the needs.
It is unfortunate that most of the medcal school libraries lack funds
to function because the libraries are not directly under faculty but under
the main libraries. This affects, the budgeting stuations.
Although the objectives of the University and faculty are being
partially fulfilled as indicated in the article, yet there are areas of services
that need improvement for effective dissemination of medical information
through the medical libraries.
4 RECOMMENDATIONS
(1)
The Library needs a well trained and competent medical librarian.
(2)
The medical library should develop an archival collection by
acquiring medical litreature proceduced by the medical staff of the
University in areas of research interest, including newspaper
cuttings on medical interest to be in form of an album to serve the
quick reference source.
(3) The finance of the library should be the responsbility of the faculty
and not of the main library for sufficient allocation of funds.
(4)
Constant stock taking or re-evaluation of books and journals needs
to be undertaken so that less used will be withdrawn to give room
for heavy use and new ones.
(5)
Promote the informational needs of users by providing services
such as compilation of reading lists of recent articles, bibliographic
inquires, inter-library loan services, bibliographic searches, CAS
and SDI.
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REFERKNCES
1
SEWELL (W). Ed. Reader in medical librarianship. Microcard
editions. (1973); p 46.
2
1RUOJE (M A). Bibliographic service in college of Medicine.
(1983); Lagos Librarian (Special issue). Ml,A 19; No 2; p 10.
3
OLUWAKUYIDE (A). An examination,of Nigeria Medical
Library Association. (1972) Vol 60 (No 2): 315-318.
4
CUNNINGHAM. Handbook of medical library practice, Ed 2.
(1956) American Library Association, Chicago.
5
MAGYRAY-KOSSA (T V). A medical librarian. What is that?
(1974) Exposition Press Inc, Jericho, p 76.
6
AFOLABI (M). Management of special libraries: Strategic for
their survival and growth. ABU Zaria (1969) (Minegraph).
7
UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN. University Calender, 1986-1990.
(1990) University Press, Ilorin. p 37-40.
8
THORTON (J L). Medical Librarianship, Principles and Practice.
(1963) Crosby, Lockwood ami sons, London. P. 37-39.
9
UNIVERSITY OF ILOR1N. Faculty of Health Sciences
Prospectus. (1979) University Press, Ilorin. P4
10
UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN. Use of Library pamphlet. )1980) p 10.
11
BABAFEM1 (G O). Resources and Services of University of
Ilorin Medical Library, ABU Zaria (BLS Project).
12
UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN. University Calender, 1986-90 (1990)
University Press, Ilorin P37-40.
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