REPOSITIONING NIGERIAN PUBLIC LIBRARIES FOR INNOVATIVE REVENUE GENERATION STRATEGIES

Abstract

Human capital development is greatly linked with the possession of information and knowledge assets which the members of the society harness to achieve social capital and attain sustainable development. The public library is one of the social institutions that provide the basic information and knowledge resources needed by man without any form of commercial and social pressure or restriction. However, the reliance of such libraries on government funding in the midst of global and national economic challenges, and their philosophy of free access have limited the performance of public libraries in Nigeria, and affected their capacity to deliver on their social mandate of information provision for societal development. This paper therefore argues for the repositioning of public libraries for strategic revenue generation to achieve their goals. The adoption of crowd-funding, establishment of business ventures, corporate partnership, publicity, etc have been proffered as strategies that will not affect the philosophy of public libraries. However, identified challenges such as inadequate business acumen of librarians, strict legislations and policies of public libraries, absence of structural uniformity, inadequate staffing among others have posed difficulty towards the engagement of libraries in revenue generation schemes. This paper recommends inclusion of revenue generation courses in LIS curriculum, retraining of practicing librarians, government provision of take-off grants for businesses, relaxation of legal frameworks and policies on libraries, among others, in order to open the floodgate for the engagement of public libraries in revenue generation programmes that can enhance contemporary information services delivery for the development of the nation. Keywords: Public Libraries, Revenue Generation Strategies, Nigeria