The foundations of modern libraries in Nigeria

Znt. Libr. Rev. (1977) 9, 461-483

The Foundations of Modern Libraries in Nigeria Cl. C. AGUOLU*

The evolving conceptions of Nigerian education are linked with British colonial and decolonizing policies and with the development of nationalism. Cohn, however, has stated that “nationalism has both an internal and external connotation. Internally, it applies to the feeling of involvement and attachment to a particular state; externally, it involves the ideology of a political movement dedicated to the establishment of independent and sovereign state”.’ The early leaders of the Nigerian nationalist movement construed nationalism in both political and intellectual terms. The former involved emancipation from the trammels of colonialism and the latter from the alien mode of thought and educational philosophy. Writers on the history of Nigerian libraries generally take the year 1948 as the beginning of modern libraries, not because they are unaware of the existence of libraries before that historic date, but because “it was with the establishment of the University Library at Ibadan that Nigeria acquired a library in the fullest sense, equipped for reference and research, permanently established, professionally directed and staffed, and provided with an assured budget and an appropriate building”.2 Ogunsheye’s comment is illuminating : It would be wrong to assume . . . that libraries were introduced into Nigeria in 19443. The history of libraries in Nigeria can be traced back to the Arabic collections that had existed in various parts of the North for centuries, as extensions of the Timbuctoo centre of learning. The inhabitants of Lagos have had some form of library service in Tom Jones Library founded between 1910 and 1920. This library by 1932 had become an established subscription library. In that year, the Lagos Club established another subscription library at Moloney . . . The 20 years 1948-68 period marked the tenure of office of Mr John Harris as Librarian of the University of Ibadan. The period of proper library history can be said to * School of Library and Information Studies U-Co Berkley, U.S.A. 1 Helen Cohn (1972). Soviet PO&Y Toward Black Africa: lib Focus on p, 17. New York: Praeger. s John Harris ( 1962). Libraries of learning and research in Nigeria, Library

.National

Integration,

World

LXIV, 68.

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start with the establishment Library has been the pivot

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AGUOLU

of the University College of library development for

Library Nigeria

in 1948 . . . This ever since.1

Although Nigerian university libraries and the National Library are all post-war institutions, a clear delineation of the forces, political, economic and social, which shaped the foundations for their eventual emergence is valuable in understanding the current problems facing the institutions. It is the function of history to identify relationships or connections between events and account for them. The episodic description of isolated events, which has been characteristic of much of the writing on the development of Nigerian libraries, has failed to illuminate our understanding of their developmental patterns. Henri Pirenne, a Belgian historian, states : To construct history is to narrate it. From its first existence it has consisted in narratives, that is, the telling of a succession ofrelated episodes. Indeed, the essential work of the historian is to bring these episodes to light, to show relations existing between events, and in relating to explain them. Thus it appears that history is the expository narration of the course of human societiesin the past.2

Other historians who have an ontological view of history contend that “the distinctive task of the historian is to assessor measure the influence or virtuality of a past upon a present. This implies discovering the links or connections between events as providing the key to the material causes in history . . . the work of the historian is necessarily descriptive and idiographic. Furthermore, in the strict sense of the term the historian does not ‘explain’, he merely shows a particular event or a series of events as understandable as likely to have happened”.3 This is a misconception of historiography. The fact that the historian has to describe the events before attempting to explain them does not mean that history, as a scholarly discipline, is a mere descriptive enterprise. Before the establishment of the first Nigerian University in 1948, there was no qualified librarian, no professional library association to encourage and stimulate library development, no professional library conference held in Africa except in South Africa, no national library or any national body charged with formulating library and information policies. The few libraries that existed, mostly special libraries attached to government departments and research institutes, had had no professional direction. The first Nigerian librarian to qualify in 195 1, by passing the traditional professional examinations of the British 1 F. A. Ogunsheye (1970). Planning s Henri Pirenne (1959). ‘What are The Philosophy of History in Our Time, p. s Jeremy White (1975). The nature try to explain, Second Order: An Aftican

for National building, Ngeriun Libraries VI, 11. historians trying to do?’ In Hans Meyerhoff (ed.). 94. New York: Doubleday. of historical explanation or what is it that Historians 3oumalof Philosophy IV, 64.

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Library Association, had no university or broad liberal education. The first Nigerian graduate librarian qualified in 1953. In fact, the popular conception of librarianship which, to some extent, still persists, had been that of clerical, or at best, a technical occupation, requiring no distinctive intellectual ability or personal qualities, and which anybody willing could take up. This seems to have been the impression given by the national authorities in their response to continual demand for higher education and libraries, made by Nigerian intellectuals who were also leading the movement for independence. Dean, former Librarian of the University of Ghana and also former Director of the Institute of Librarianship, University of Ibadan, in his essay on the organization and services of the West African university libraries, identifies three major factors that were decisive in the development of higher education and libraries in English-speaking West Africa.1 The greatest impetus came from the nationalists. The second was the encouragement given by successive British governments before and after the Anglophone countries of West Africa gained their independence, and the third was the impact of external agencies, especially colonial cultural agencies, philanthropic foundations and international organizations. Thompson, who is concerned with the post-war development of librarianship in former British West Africa, also identifies three principal factors; namely, accelerated development of all levels of education, political advancement of the West African states, which culminated in their independence in the early 1960’s; and the interest shown in West African library problems by such foreign agencies as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the British Council and UNESCO.2 ISLAMIC

SCHOLARSHIP

To assume that libraries in Nigeria followed the advent of Christianity in the 1840’s and Western education is as fallacious as to say that libraries did not exist in Western Europe before the invention of printing with movable type in the fifteenth century. In both cases, book collections or libraries had long existed, although the books were in manuscript, rather than in codex form. It is easy to overlook the fact that libraries had existed in Northern Nigeria “before Nigeria itself 1 John Dean (1970). Organization and services of university libraries in West Africa. In Miles Jackson (IA.). Cbmparative and International Librarianship: Essays on Themes and Problems, pp. 115-17. Westport: Greenwood. 2 J. S. Thompson (1968/g). Post-war development of librarianship in former British West Africa: a historical description of library development in Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Gambia. Master’s Thesis, University of London.

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came into existence. The full extent of those is still not known . . . but since 1955, there has been no excuse for not knowing of their existence”.1 This refers to the publication of an article in WALA Jveus in 1955s by W. E. Kensdale, a specialist in Arabic and Deputy University Librarian at Ibadan, on the nature and extent of Arabic manuscript collections still extant in Northern Nigeria, which he toured in 1953 in quest of these manuscripts for the development of Arabic collection of the University College, Ibadan. He collected over 150 manuscripts which were mostly of Western African authorship, some of which he acquired by direct purchase, and others either microfilmed or photo-copied from the manuscripts held by the learned Islamic leaders, maliams, emirs and alkalis. There were no surviving originals, and the extant copies had apparently passed many years of manual transcriptions, thus raising the possible problem of textual accuracy and authenticity in some cases. Kensdale, in 1958, published A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts Preserved in the University Libray, Ibadan, Nigeria,3 previously issued in separate fascicles. This catalogue gives biographical notes on the authors, subject matter of each entry, bibliographical data, and location if known, and has an author-title index. The manuscripts were mostly of a theological and legal nature. Kensdale thus summarizes his experiences during this acquisition tour in Northern Nigeria. The problem of location was soon solved; everywhere I was received with great kindness and soon found no lack of willing and enthusiastic helpers. I was introduced to learned mallams and alkalis, who readily allowed me to inspect their personal libraries, often most generously presenting me with works in which I had shown interest. Many owners of manuscripts, doubting whether they could replace those that I required, trustingly allowed me to take them back to Ibadan for microfilming. . . it was often possible to purchase manuscripts where this could be done, it proved an even more economical method of acquisition on the whole than microfilming . . . Extensive as this literature was, and although in some areas manuscripts are still not hard to obtain, there is an urgent need for further collecting and the careful preservation ofthese documents. Frequently I learnt of manuscripts that had been handed down from generation to generation only to be given, in recent years, to the children of the house as playthings. Many others have been destroyed by fire, eaten by rats, or rendered illegible by damp . . . I heard several times of large libraries of manuscripts being taken across the frontier into French territory; these may yet find their way into 1 John Harris (1970). Libraries and Librarianship in Nigeria At Mid-Century, p. 2. Legon: Department of Library Studies, University of Ghana. s W. E. Kensdale (1955). The Arabic manuscript collection of the library of the University College of Ibadan, Nigeria. WALA News II (June). 3 W. E. Kensdale (1958). A Catalogue of the Arabic Manusmi~ts Preserved in the University Library, Zbaakn, .Nigeriu. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.

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libraries, but it would seem more appropriate for Nigeria’s to be preserved in Nigeria’s University Library, or in capable of assuming responsibility for them.1

unpublished a national

literature institution

It is pertinent to mention here that the word “Nigeria” was coined only in 1897 by a London Times correspondent, Flora Shaw, who later became the wife of Sir Frederick Lugard, the first Governor-General of Nigeria, “to serve as a shorter title for the agglomeration of pagan and Mohammedan States which have been brought, by the exertions of the Royal Niger Company, within the confines of a British Protectorate and thus the need for the first time in their history to be described as an entity by some general name”.2 Once suggested, the name became popular in England and by 1900 it had been accepted as the official nomenclature for the West African country. Despite scanty documentation of the Nigerian history before colonial rule, scholars know for certain that Northern Nigeria, during medieval times, had contact with the kingdoms of the Western Sudan, such as Ghana, Mali and Songhai and with the Mediterranean countries. A vast political upheaval in Arabia during the ninth and tenth centuries led to the rise of Islam, speeding up Arab migration through Egypt into North and West Africa. By the end of the fourteenth century, Northern Nigeria had embraced Islam, with Kano becoming the Center of Islamic studies and a great commercial cross-road of the Western Sudan. The geographic and strategic position of Bornu made it a convenient settlement area for the Arab emigrants from Egypt. Triminghams and Greenberg4 have examined the impact of Islam in West Africa. Paradoxically, with the advent of Christianity and Western education, the degree of their acceptance by Nigerians largely depended on the degree of their previous acceptance of Islam and Koranic education. It is true that West African universities are virtually transplants of European universities and are post-war creations; it is also true that, prior to Christianity and Western education in West Africa, great centers of Islamic learning had flourished in Timbuctoo (also spelt as Timbuktu) and Sankore. Arabic, like Latin in the medieval Europe, was the dominant language of scholarship and culture as well as the l W. E. Kensdale (1955). The Arabic manuscript collection of the library of the College of Ibadan, Nigeria. WALA Jhws II, 23-24. s Times of Mn, 8 January, 1897. See also: A. H. Kirk-Greene (1956). Who name Nigeria? West Aficu, 22 December, 1956, 1035. s J. S. Trimingham (1961). A History ofZ&m in West Africa. London: Oxford Press. 4 Joseph Greenberg (1946). 7%~ Zn&encc of Islam on a SudaneseKingdom. New Augustin.

University coined

the

University York:

J. J.

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medium of diplomacy, commerce and correspondence. Scholars of African history and linguistics have discovered large numbers of scholarly manuscripts dealing with various subjects, especially law, language and literature, and theology. Shaw in A Tropical Dependeng: An Outline of the Ancient History of the Western Sudan, writes of Timbuctoo : The study of law, literature, grammar and theology would seem to have been more general at Timbuctoo than that of the natural sciences : we hear, however, of at least one distinguished geographer, and allusions to surgical science . . . Among the possessions of the rich, large libraries and good horses would seem . . . to have been the more valued. The libraries of the wealthy and learned citizens are frequently mentioned . . .r

While there is irrefutable evidence about the existence of Timbuctoo as an intellectual center of Arabo-Islamic culture, our available sources on the existence of the University of Sankore are conflicting. Shaw contends that such a university existed, adding, “the University of Sankore would seem to have been a very active centre of civilization. It was attached to the mosque of the same name, and was in correspondence both by letter and by the frequent visits of its professors, with the universities of North Africa and Egypt . . . the more distinguished professors would seem to have had schools in which they gave courses of lectures, attended by students, who afterwards received diplomas from the hands of masters”.2 Trimingham, on the other hand, rejects the view that the University of Sankore ever existed, maintaining that Sankore was merely the quarters, where most of the teaching clerics established houses, although some of them might have conducted some teaching in them.3 The famous Kane Chronicle, regarded as the repository of our knowledge about West Africa during the medieval times,4 mentions the abundance of libraries at Sankore and Timbuctoo, which consisted of Arabic manuscripts, most of which had been bought by the Arab emigrants from Arabian libraries which flourished in Baghdad, Cairo and Tripoli. These Arab libraries had benefitted from the translations of Greek manuscripts, notably the works of Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy and those of Roman law which remained unknown during the Dark Ages.5 The critical importance of those manuscripts connected with Timbuctoo for historical research on West Africa was stressed at the 1 Flora Shaw (1905). A Topical Dependency: An Outline of the Ancient History of the Western Sudan With an Account of the Modem Settlement of .Northem Nigeria, pp. 206-7. London: Nisbet. 2 Ibid., pp. 2034. s Trimingham, op. cit., pp. 98+. * T. 0. Elias (1970). The romance of libraries and Nigerian objectives. Nigerian Libraries VI (April/August), 18. 5 Charles Haskins (1923). The Rise of the Universities, p. 8. New York: Henry Holt.

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Conference organized by UNESCO in 1967 at Timbuctoo on the problems of collecting, studying and authenticating the Arabic manuscripts and on means of controlling them bibliographically.1 Many of the manuscripts were brought into Northern Nigeria long before the European arrival, with the spread of Islam. Moslems have a universalistic conception of religion which permeates their political, military and intellectual pursuits. 2 Following the successful “Jihad” or Holy War launched by the Moslem Fulani scholar, Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, against the Hausa states of Northern Nigeria in the early nineteenth century, Islam was quickly implanted in all conquered areas and the Arabic language and Koranic education introduced. Gradually there grew a body of indigenous Arabic literature. Attempts were also made to reduce, towards the middle of the nineteenth century, some of the local vernaculars (Hausa and Fulani) to writing in Arabic. There were, however, difficulties in adapting Arabic characters and orthography to these local languages. The family of the leader of the Holy War, Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, was highly reputed for the depth of its scholarship. Kensdale records that in 1953 when he toured Northern Nigeria for acquisitions purposes, out of some 150 manuscripts he acquired, 42 titles were authored by Shehu Usman Dan Fodio (d. 1817), 28 titles by his brother Abdullahi Dan Fodio (d. 1828), 20 titles by Muhammadu Bello, (d. 1837), Usman’s great grandson. s Whitting, a noted Arabic scholar, has shown the connection between the Fulani “Jihad” and the growth of the indigenous Arabic literature, in his study of the unprinted indigenous Arabic literature of Northern Nigeria. He observes that out of 99 titles of the local Arabic manuscripts works, which he has described in his article as to their author, title, and subject matter, some 28 titles were written by Shehu Usman Dan Fodio and 32 by his brother. The preponderance of legal manuscripts resulted from administrative need.4 Whitting considers British, French and German imperialism as deleterious to the intellectual and cultural growth of Northern Nigeria in the Islamic tradition, by commenting Be that

as it may,

both

the developing

indigenous

Arabic

literature

and

Ajami-

1 Report of the UNESCO meeting in the Utilization of Written Sources for the History of Africa, held at Timbuktu, 30 November-7 December 1967. Research Bull& (Centre of Arabic Documentation, Ibadan) IV (December, 1968), 52-69. 2 J. F. Ajayi (1965). Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891: The Making of a New Elite, p. 1. London : Longmans. a W. E. Kensdale (1955). The Arabic manuscript collection of the library of the University College of Ibadan. WALA Jvews II C-Tune). .- ,, 23-24. * C. E. Whitting (1943). The Unpublished Indigenous Arabic Literature of Northern Nigeria. 3oumal of the fiyal Asiatic Sotie@ of Great Britain and Ireland, Parts 1 and 2 (April, 1943), 20-6.

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as this vernacular in Arabic script came to be called-were cut short by the invasions of Great Britain, France, and Germany at the end of the nineteenth century. Whatever the other benefits conferred by these incursions, cultural dislocation was inevitable on conquest by so alien a race, and also a reorientation of outlook from north and east to south and west. Further, natural cultural and political units were arbitrarily divided by lines drawn on maps in the foreign offices of London, Paris and Berlin.1

Many West Africans were literate in Arabic before the advent of Christianity and colonial rule, and there were large private libraries of learned Islamic scholars and wealthy men. Wilks records that book publishing in Africa actually began with the spread of Islam and that, by the seventeenth century, there were already available both foreign and locally produced manuscripts in circulation, especially within the intellectual centers of the trans-Saharan trade of the Western Sudan.2 The early Islamic publishing faced serious problems. As publishing and literacy have symbiotic links, the elitist nature of the Islamic education failed to produce enough literates to ensure the continuation of publishing enterprise. The narrow range of the subjects of the manuscripts, which centered on law, poetry, philosophy and religion did not encourage wide distribution of the published materials. The advent of Christianity and European imperialism spelled the doom of Islamic publishing. Western education had a broader, pragmatic conception of education which could not be sustained by the existing conservative mode of publishing. A noted Islamic poet-laureate, Al-Hajj Umar, is said to have lamented the advent of Christianity in West Africa thus. “A Sun of disaster has arisen in the West-Christian calamity has come upon US”.~ Besides, there was the initial but natural resistance among most West Africans to literary tradition to which they could not easily turn from oral-aural tradition. They were reluctant “to accept a mode of communication which posed a threat to the accustomed habits of life and thought in the community. In West Africa, also the first books were regarded as the esoteric possession of a class which should be feared rather than emulated . . . There was consequently no book trade in a real sense and the only libraries which emerged were private ones”.4 Thus during the dominance of Islamic scholarship in West Africa, l Ibid.,

p. 21.

* Ivor Wilks

(1968). The transmission of Islamic learning in the Western Sudan. In Jack

Goody and I. Watts (eds). Literacy in Traditional Societies, pp. 162-97. London: Cambridge University Press. s Quoted in Jack Goody (1972). Literacy and the non-Literate, Times Literasy Supplement (May 12), p. 539. 4 S. I. A. Kotei, “Some cultural and social factors of book reading and publishing in Africa. In Edwina Oluwasanmi, Eva McLean and Hans Zell (eds). Publishing in Africa, p. 176. IlcIfe: University of Ife Press.

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the conception of scholarship as a primarily private matter retarded the institutionalization of libraries. Professionalized and institution-centered scholarship which called for institutionally supported libraries to aid scholarship and research is a Western heritage. Besides, the character of Koranic education in Northern Nigeria which put premium on parrot learning and rote memorization damped any stimulus for institutionally provided library service. The Koranic schools tended to be primarily moralistic institutions concerned with moulding the character of the Islamic converts and with their ability to memorize and regurgitate the Book of Koran. In fact, by 1943, when the Elliot Commission on Higher Education in West Africa visited Nigeria, these schools had mushroomed by the thousand. The Commission then commented: It is necessary to put on record that in 1931 the number of Koranic “schools” in Northern Nigeria is given, according to census figures, as 33,426, all purely voluntary, all maintained by the people themselves, and the scholars as 183,374. Although the vast proportion of these schools are purely Koranic, there are included in this figure the “Ilimi” or law schools which aim at a general education including history, geography, Mohammedan law and custom. The Koranic schools of West Africa are in essence simply “a teacher under a tree” and may represent in many cases merely a patter-acquisition of tests and sayings in a foreign and incomprehensible tongue. Their origin, however, was the oldest of conceptions in the field of education, a pupil willing to learn and teacher ready to teach.1 THE

ORIGINS

OF PRINTING

AND

PUBLISHING

Libraries are social institutions subject to the political, cultural and economic forces operating in the society in which they are established. Jefferson,2 Landheers and Benge4 have discussed in full the interactive factors which determine library development in different socio-cultural systems. The pre-literate civilization mostly relies on the fallible instrument-the memory-for the storing and transmission of knowledge. With just about 25% of its people literate in the Western sense, Nigeria is predominantly a country, where oral transmission of knowledge is the most effective medium of communication. The invention of writing has helped man to preserve knowledge in various storage devices and to retrieve it on demand, with less dependence on the human memory. The invention of mechanical printing is one of the most revolutionary events in intellectual history, which has enabled man to multiply 1 Walter Elliot (1945). Report of the Commission on Higher Education in West Africa, London: H.M.S.O. s George JcfTerson (1969). Libraries and So&y. Cambridge : James Clarke. s B. Landheer (1957). Social Functions of Libraries. New York: Scarecrow Press. 4 Ronald Benge (1970). Libraries and Cultural Change. London: Clive Bingley.

p. 14.

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identical copies of printed matter, thus obviating the necessity of relying on the laborious, manual copying of books or documents, with its inevitable human errors. Since libraries are both information and communication systems, we may find some relevance in Marshall McLuhan’s conceptual model of the development of man’s cultural history, which he has divided into three phases, each conditioned by a change in the dominant communication medium.1 The first is the oral-aural stage, marked by an oral transmission of knowledge. The second phase is the emergence of a phonetic alphabet, characterized by greater visual than oral communication, and culminating in printing which “is the extreme phase of the alphabetic culture”.2 This “establishes the absolute dominance of the visual sense above all others and consolidates a sequential and logical mode of thought which is exclusively linear, resembling the lines of print on the page”.3 The third phase, most exemplified by the technological societies, is the age of electronic circuitry, symbolized by television. Nigeria, like many other pre-industrialized African countries, cannot accurately be fitted into any one of these stages of cultural development. Unlike the former pre-industrialized countries of Europe, which had phased cultural development, African nations, although strongly oral in tradition, are simultaneously exposed to all the three phases of McLuhan’s cultural typology. Thus these countries are often regarded as being in too much hurry to achieve, within a century, what took the developed countries several centuries to achieve. The role of the Christian missionaries in the development of Nigerian education is widely discussed, but very little is often said of their role in the development of printing and publishing. Coleman has noted that, from the arrival of missionaries in Nigeria in the 1840’s to 1942, they controlled 99% of all schools, that over 97% of all students in Nigeria were attending mission schools, and that by the end of World War II, there were few literate Nigerians who had not received all or part of their education from the missionaries .4 Education, libraries and publishing constitute a trivium in the intellectual history of any country, and they are so closely interdependent that it is difficult to conceive how any of them can flourish in the absence of one or two others. There is still considerable historical controversy over the assumption that 1 Marshall McLuhan (1962). The Gutenberg Galaxy: 7% Making of Tj$ogra/thic Man. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 2 Ibid., p. 158. 3 K. J. McGarry (1975). Communication, Knowledge and the Librarian, p. 108. London: Clive Bingley. *James Coleman (1958). Ngnia: Background to Nationalism, p. 141. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Christianity and Western culture which the missionaries tried to spread in Africa when they arrived, were superior to the traditional African religions and value-systems. 1 However, Ajayi considers Islam, Christianity, colonial rule and nationalism as the four milestones in Nigerian history.2 Like Western education, printing was introduced into Nigeria by the Scottish Presbyterian missionaries in the 1840’s. In 1846, a Presbyterian mission, accompanied by one Samuel Edgerley, a professional printer, and led by Hope Waddell, arrived in Calabar, Eastern Nigeria, from Jamaica.3 They brought with them a lithographic press and a conventional press for letter-press printing. In 1847, Waddell returned to Jamaica to recruit Hugh Goldie, a Scottish scholar with historical and linguistic interests. Evidence indicates that Waddell, the leader of the mission, before returning to Jamaica to recruit Goldie, had acquired the lithographic art of printing and had gained enough knowledge of the local language to be able to issue the first printed materials in Nigeria by a lithographic process in 1846.4 These were Twelve Bible Lessons and E$k Vocabulary written by Waddell. No copies exist. A scholarly, dispassionate reconstruction of the history of this early printing in Nigeria, based on the published and unpublished materials of Hope Waddell available in the manuscripts collections of the National Library of Scotland, has been made by Carnie,5 who, along with Hugh Goldie, in his Calabar and Its Mission,6 confirms the view that it was Waddell, and not Edgerley, the professional printer, who began printing in Nigeria. Ajayi states that by 1849 the Presbyterian mission had published 800 examples, 200 multiplication copies of the Primer, 150 arithmetical tables, 300 copies of elementary arithmetic, 500 almanacs with Ten Commandments in Efik, 400 copies of catechism in Efik and English and 500 copies of Bible lessons. 7 The subject matter of these publications reflects other vital areas of concern to the missionaries in their evangeliThe Christian cal efforts; namely, basic literacy and numeracy. converts should be able to read the Bible and other Biblical materials 1 Charles Groves (1964). The Planting of Christianity in Aftica, 4 vols. London: Lutterworth Press. (Reprint of 1948-58 edition.) 2 J. F. Ajayi, Milestones in Jvigerian History. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press. 3 Hope Waddell (1863). Twenty-one Years in the West Indies and Central Ajkica; A Review of Missionary Work and Adventure, 1829-1858. London: Nelson. 4 Ibid., p. 280. 6 R. H. Carnie (1973). Samuel Edgerley: printer in Calabar, 1846-57. Virginia University Bibliographical Society; Studies in Bibliography XXVI, 265-70. 6 Hugh Oldie (1890). Calabar and its Mission. Edinburgh: Oliphant Anderson. 7 J. F. Ajayi (1965). Christian Missions in .Nigmia, 1841-1891: The Making of a New Elite, London: Longmans. p. 158.

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and to do some arithmetic, so as to facilitate their methods of counting. Edwards rationalizes the unique faith which guided these missionaries in Africa: It was not merely a religious faith, but a social and philosophical one as well. To them the superiority of western ideas, western forms of society, western technical skilI, western systems of government and education, seemed selfevident. Work among the untutored tribes of Africa meant chiefly the extension of these ideas, forms and systems to those not fortunate enough to enjoy them already. Unless they accepted without question the intrinsic dominance of their own culture, their labours would have lost all meaning . . . The main vehicle of the transformation must be books, especially the Book, where Africans would find the “whole duty of man” set forth in simple words. So translation work began. Missionaries put immense, sometimes miraculous efforts into devising a suitable orthography for languages which had previously possessed no literature. Their school lessons, their sermons, their edifying tracts, were as soon as possible, turned into the vernacular. But it became clear that this was not enough. African languages, formed chiefly to oil the machinery of social life and very expensive within their own limits, could not bear the weight of complex technical ideas. In order to gain full advantage from the material treasures laid out for them by the West, Africans would have to obtain a thorough knowledge of a Western language. This they did. Higher education came to be conducted entirely in an alien tongue.’

In 1859 the first Nigerian newspaper, Iwe Irohin Fun Awon Ara Egba publication, was issued by Reverend Henry Townsend of the Methodist mission in Abeokuta, Western Nigeria but the first privately owned newspaper, Anglo-African, was published in 1863 by Robert Campbell, a Jamaican immigrant.2 The development of the newspaper publishing industry from 1859-1937 was studied by Omu for his doctoral dissertation.3 The first commercial press, the Tika-Tore Printing Works, which was not tied to newspaper publishing, was established by Akintunde Adesigbin, at Lagos in 1910. Notwithstanding the fact that indigenous commercial printing presses had proliferated since the 1880’s the total output of the pamphlets and magazines published in Nigeria even up to World War II, remained very small. They had a limited subject range, as they tended to focus on the topical and political issues of the day, but serving as an effective springboard for nationalist agitation. School texts, general or light reading materials and scholarly works which usually satisfied the tastes of a small minority, mainly Europeans, were imported from abroad. Tamuno, a librarian at

Ati Tomba, a fortnightly

1James Edwards (1964). Libraries LXVI (September), 384. z F. I. Omu (1966). The Anglo-African, 8 F. I. Omu (1965). The Nigerian University of Ibadan.

and the culture of Africa. Library 1863-65. newspaper

Jvigcsia press,

Magazine 1859-1937.

Association

Record

(September), 206-12. Ph.D. dissertation,

FOUNDATIONS

OF

NIGERIAN

LIBRARIES

the University of Ibadan, who has been studying the Nigerian typography, observes :

the development

473 of

School curricula in Nigeria were not very different from those operating in European schools. But the commercial presses provided the printing outlets for the political and historical tracts without whose existence it would have been difficult to reconstruct properly the nation’s history. The period of nationalist struggle in both the church and state coincided with the beginning of serious commercial printing presses. Political tracts, government measures and the Christian churches were printed by nationalists of the day.1

Scholarly publishing only emerged in Nigeria in 1949, with the founding of the Ibadan University Press, which originally started as part of the University library and with the establishment of a branch of the Oxford University Press at Ibadan. THE

BEGINNINGS

OF

MODERN

LIBRARIES

As service-institutions which are not profit-making, libraries cannot be self-supporting. Special libraries must look to the parent institutions which they primarily serve, or if they do not serve any special institutions, to those who established them, for financial support; academic and school libraries rely upon institutional support; public and national libraries on governmental subventions. The establishment of any library is predicated upon two fundamental assumptions: namely, that the authorities setting it up are prepared to ensure its continued existence by adequate financial support and that the people whom the library serves appreciate its informational and educational values. Aje, Director of the National Library of Nigeria, who has examined both assumptions within the Nigerian context, observes: The consumers of a library service need to be conscious of its value, and be competent to utilize it. If both elements are present, there will be clamor for a service where there is none, and a heavy use where there is one. Educational level is a valid factor for both support and acceptance. But due notice must be taken of the dictum that services generate use. The collective attitude of a people to the use and sustenance of library service is a function of their intellectual development and socio-cultural maturity. . . The lack of awareness of the services of the library is due to our method of teaching and the type of curriculum. Our present method is no trainer for using the library after the examination. It seems that librarians have got to accept that we have responsibility not only for providing resources but making the people appreciate that we can really help them with their daily problems.2 10. G. Tamuno (1973). Printing and publishing in Nigeria: a historical survey. Nigerian IX (April/August), 4-5. s S. B. Aje (1970). Social and other forces affecting library development. Nigtrian Libraries VI (April/August), 49-5 1. Libraties

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Implicit in Aje’s remark is the fact that lack of demand for libraries does not necessarily mean lack of need for them. The early development of Nigerian libraries reveals a continual conflict between two opposing forces-between those who wanted libraries and fought to see them established and those who resisted their establishment or their expansion.1 This was the library situation from the first decade of this century to the mid-1950’s. “A library profession can only come to full development in a society favourable to libraries for the many. It is not merely a matter of being born but of finding circumstances favorable to the profession’s growth.“2 The two opposing forces were the colonial government in Lagos and the British Government on the one hand, and the Nigerian nationalists and colonial civil servants sympathetic to local aspirations like the crave for higher education and library services, on the other. We have scanty information on Nigerian libraries prior to 1930. We do know, however, that the only type of library with any kind of official or institutional support was the special library. Except for the law library, now within the Federal Ministry of Justice at Lagos which was created in 1900,s out of the administrative need for the bibliographic control of growing colonial legal documents, the special libraries reflected the colonial government’s interest in the investigations of tropical medicine, agriculture and geology. The library of the Medical Research Institute which was established in 1909 was amalgamated with the library of the Medical Headquarters at Lagos in 1947 to form the Central Medical Library when it became impossible to obtain the services of a trained medical librarian from the United Kingdom.4 Although we do not know for certain the date of the establishment of the Medical Headquarters Library, there is evidence that it had been in existence before World War I.5 The only professional attention the Medical Research Institute Library ever had from 1910 when it was established to 1947 was provided by Miss Hilda Clark, who was “sent out by the Colonial Office for a period of three months, and this marked the beginning of a new era for the Medical Research Institute Library. A complete and accurate catalogue was made, correct library methods were introduced, and a Nigerian library assistant began his training in 1 John Harris (1970). Libraries and Librarianship in Jvigeria a# Mid-Century, pp. 4-5. Legon: Department of Library Studies, University of Ghana. 2 Ibid., p. 4. 8 A. Adefidiya-Akpata (1968). Law library, Federal Ministry of Justice, Lagos. Logos Librarian III (September), 27. 4 D. A. Cannon (1954). The development of medical library facilities in Nigeria. Libri III, 186. 5 Ibid., p. 184.

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medical librarianship”.1 The library collection was strong in pathology, bacteriology and parasitology. The first Annual Report of the Medical Research Institute, issued in 1910 by its director indicates that scientists and scholars in Nigeria had already begun to assert unequivocally the importance of a good library in research : No advance is likely to be made in any subject by a student ignorant of what is already known. He merely rediscovers known facts uselessly. In the West African colonies there is yet no collection of scientific books or journals available for consultation on any subject. An adequate library is, therefore an absolute necessity here, for the use of the staff at present and later on, for the use of those members of the medical staff who may come here for the purpose of carrying out special research.2

Established in 1909, a year after its counterpart was set up in the Gold Coast (Ghana), the Medical Research Institute was concerned primarily with conducting research in tropical diseases which had a8licted or killed many colonial officials and Christian missionaries in West Africa. The epidemic proportions and fatality of these diseases had prompted in 1898 the creation of Schools of Tropical Medicine at Liverpool and London, whose young graduates were usually selected and sent to British West Africa to study the diseases in situ and suggest ways to ameliorate the health conditions in the region.3 There may have been some books and periodicals in the institute in 1909, when it was founded but the 1910 Annual Report makes it clear that the concept of library service, as we now understand the term, did not exist in 1909. Most of the early special libraries dealt with agricultural matters. In 1905, the library of the British Cotton Growers Association Research Station, came into being at Ibadan, changing its name to the Department of Agriculture in 1910 and again to the Department of Agricultural Research in 1954. A similar research institute was set up in Northern Nigeria in 1925, known as the Samaru Research Station, whose library has today developed into one of the best Nigerian research libraries, although, since 1962, the research station has become part of Ahmadu Bello University, renamed the Institute for Agricultural Research. Other major scientific research institutes or departments, created by the colonial government whose libraries helped to pave the way for the professionalization of research in Nigeria and to highlight the need for good library resources institutionally and officially provided, include the Nigerian Geological Survey established in 1919, at 1 Ibid.,

p. 185.

s Medical Research Institute (1910). Annual Report, Lagos. s Charles Tettey (1960). Medical library services in English-speaking M<4LA News III (May), 245-6.

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Kaduna; the National Department of Veterinary Research, Vom, in 1924; the Nigerian Institute for Oil-Palm Research, Benin City, in 1939, formerly the West African Institute for Oil-Palm Research; the Nigerian Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research, Kaduna, in 1947, formerly the West African Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research; and the Federal Institute for Industrial Research, Oshodi in 1957. With regard to private libraries, three are noteworthy, and two of them played an important role in the building up of Ibadan University College Library during its formative years. The least known and significant of the three was the book collection, rich in government documents and belonging to a wealthy Nigerian citizen, Tom Jones, who is said to have donated it to the colonial government to serve as a reference library. It was, however, turned into an unsuccessful subscription library, tucked away in a dilapidated building, the Tom Jones Memorial Hall. We lack any conclusive evidence as to when the subscription library was really founded, but sources generally point to the period between 1910 and 1920. Much more important than the Tom Jones Library were the libraries of two great early Nigerian library men, Dr Henry Carr (15 August 1863-4 March 1945) and Herbert Macaulay (14 November 1864-7 May 1946). C arr was an introvert, bibliophilic an extrovert, passionate and and deeply religious; and Macaulay, revolutionary. The former played a very significant role in the evolution of Nigerian education, and the latter in the political and constitutional history. Dr Henry Rawlinson Carr began collecting books when he was a student at Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, in the 1870’s. He obtained the B.A. degree of the University of Durham in 1882 and, in apprecciation of his services to Nigeria, especially in the fields of education and religion, he was awarded an honorary doctoral degree in law by Durham University. Joining the colonial administration in 1888 as Chief Clerk, he rose to become the first African Commissioner of the Lagos Colony in 1920, after serving as Chief Inspector of Schools of the Southern Provinces of Nigeria from 1915 to 1918. A respected church man, he was the Chancellor of the Diocese of Western Equatorial Africa from 1906 to 1945. He was the earliest and best known Nigerian book collector in the Western sense, who left, at his death, some 18 000 volumes. His bibliophilic and catholic interests were reflected in his library, which was in 1945, the largest personal library ever assembled by any West African. Henry Cam: Lectures and Speeches,1 compiled by L. C. Gwam, the late Nigerian Archivist, is a meaty embodiment of 1 L. C. Gwam Ibadan University

(1969). Press.

Henry

Curr:

L.ectures

and S’echs

(C.

0.

Taiwo,

Ed.).

Ibadan:

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Carr’s philosophical, spiritual assessment of Dr Carr :

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values. Harris gives this

Throughout his long life he was the strong protagonist of a richer life for his fellow countrymen, and to Henry Carr the greatest riches were to be found in books. This was exemplified in the library which over the years he assembled in his house in Tinubu Square, Lagos, so assiduously and so unsparing of personal expense some 18 000 volumes. This was a private library. It is true that it was open to those who knew him, true also, that he always spoke of it as the basis for a future national library. But Henry Carr was a reserved man and I think it would be correct to say that his books served more readers after his death than ever they did in his lifetime. Nor were the books organized for other than private use. There was no catalogue, no classification, no machinery for lending. And there is evidence that as he grew older Hem-y Carr’s natural reserve was deepened and he was driven more into himself and away from the sharing of his books with others. This was due largely to the friction that developed between him and the other great Nigerian library man of his own generation, Herbert Macaulay.1

Unlike Carr, Macaulay was more of a politician with a pragmatic policy than of a intellectual with any deep religious convictions. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, London, in 1892; graduate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1893 and an Associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1903, he served as a surveyor of the Crown Lands for the Lagos Colony before resigning to take up private practice, which enabled him to step up the nationalist movement. In 1923 he founded the first Nigerian political party, the Nigerian National Democratic Party (N.N.D.P.), and in 1944, at the age of 80, he founded, with Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (N.C.N.C.). H e was the first president of the party, and Azikiwe its first secretary-general until Macaulay’s death in 1946, when Azikiwe became president. Macaulay is generally regarded as the “father of Nigerian nationalism”, and has been depicted as “one of the first Nigerian nationalists, whose views were considered so advanced as to be almost revolutionary, though today they seem quite conservative”.2 His book collection was noted, not for its size, which was incomparably smaller than the Henry Carr collection, but for the rarity of most of its material, very valuable for the study of Nigerian independence movement. Macaulay was a good pamphleteer, and a defender of human rights and liberties, who courted the public eye which Carr 1 John Harris (1970). Libraries and librarianship in Nigeria at mid-century. Niger& Libraties VI (April/August), 29. 2 Kenneth Mellanby (1958). The Birth of Nigeria’s University, pp. 209 10. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.

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tended to shy away from. Life History of Herbert Macaulay,l an uncritical biography by Isaac Thomas, throws considerable light on his life. His political career was facilitated by his successful journalistic enterprise. He was the proprietor and editor of several newspapers, including the influential Lagos Da@ News, which he founded in 1925. He was never a book collector in the sense that Henry Carr was, although Macaulay had a good private library with 500 printed books, rich in newspaper clippings, political tracts, notes, diaries and colonial documents. THE

INFLUENCE CORPORATION

OF THE CARNEGIE OF NEW YORK

In the 1920’s, a division occurred among the colonial officials at Lagos between those who saw the need for library services and tried to persuade the colonial government to provide them and those who either did not appreciate the need for such services or were not ready to spend any money on them, although they recognized the need. Not only did Great Britain suffer much economic drain from the first World War, but also it emerged from the war, responsible for the maintenance of over 100 colonies. A colonial civil servant, Sir Alan Burns, later Governor of the Gold Coast, and author of History of .Nigeria,s has recorded, as a champion of libraries, how “he tried in vain to persuade the Governor that government funds could well be spent on a public library for Lagos”.3 Sir Hugh Clifford, Governor of Nigeria from 1919 to 1924, referred to by Burns, being a prolific novelist, would have been expected to show some support for libraries. It had not been possible to approach his predecessor Sir Frederick Lugard, the first Nigerian Governor-General, (later Lord Lugard) (1914-19), who was responsible for the formation of Nigeria as its present geographico-political unit in 1914, on the subject of libraries, because of his highly parsimonious attitude to the provision of the social services. Having been transferred to the Bahamas in 1924, Burns returned to Nigeria in 1929 as Deputy Chief Secretary to the Colonial Government-a much higher position in which he would ordinarily influence the government policy towards libraries. He failed to obtain any official support for library development, and sought the aid of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which granted Nigeria a sum of $6000 in 1932 for “Library Development”.4 An ad hoc committee 1 Isaac Thomas (1948). Life History

of Herbert Macaulay, 3rd ed. Lagos: Author. s Alan Burns (1929). History of Mgeria, 7th ed. London: Allen & Unwin. 1st ed. 1929. s Irving Lieberman ( 1964). A Survey of the Lagos City Library. Complete Report, p. 91. Lagos : Lagos City Council. 4 Florence Anderson ( 1963). The Carnegie Corporation : Library Programs, 191 l-1961. New York: Carnegie Corporation.

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formed by Burns, with him as chairman and Henry Carr a member, to decide on how to utilize the Carnegie grant, opted for a subscription library which was opened in September 1932, known as the Lagos Library. As the subscription fee was relatively high, the users of the library were primarily European residents in Lagos, who could afford it. In 1939, it was reported that the entrance fee was one guinea and a monthly subscription of two shillings and six pence, and that the library had a membership of 145 Europeans and 11 Africans.1 Whatever its limitations, the Lagos library, financed by the Carnegie Corporation, was the first Nigerian library opened to the general public, albeit on a subscription basis. It is arguable whether the Carnegie Corporation knew that its money was going to be spent on a subscription library, already aware of the fate that had befallen such institutions in the United States, or whether the Corporation gave the colonial government the latitude to spend it as it saw fit, since the grant was made under the all-embracing term of “library development”. Although the Lagos library, which exists till today and has never employed a fully qualified library professional, has not made impact on Nigerian library history, its importance lies in the fact that it helped to draw the Carnegie Corporation into West African library problems, as underlined by John Harris below: Its influence has if anything hindered real library development by diverting the energies of men like Bums and Carr which could have been used to more effective social and national purpose. And yet it is to be noted that owing to the influence of its members it has always been able to command the attention of high authorities . . . One achievement, there was however, resulting from this effort by Burns and Carr; it brought onto the West African scene the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Henceforth this foundation is always in the library picture, assisting with surveys, subsidizing projects, financing investigations, and as the latest and most generous of their gestures, fathering a school of librarianship. Without them the present situation of librarianship in Nigeria might have been bleak indeed.2

In 1939, the Carnegie Corporation appointed Hanns Vischer joint secretary of the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, and Margaret Wrong, secretary of the International Committee on Christian Literature for Africa, to study and report on the expansion of libraries in British West Africa. The report, which was critical of 1 Margaret Wrong (1939). West Af rica: Corporation

for the Colonial

Office,

Library

Development,

p. 1. New

York:

Carnegie

London.

The writer was told by the Carnegie Corporation that the original report, brought in and that the existing report is a retyped

by Miss Wrong on 31 October, 1939, was destroyed copy made on 30 March, 1970. 2 John Harris (1970). Libraries and librarianship Libraries VI (April/August), 30.

in Nigeria

at mid-century.

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British lack of interest in library services, noted that in Nigeria, apart from the Lagos Library established in 1932, some library provision for Europeans was made at European clubs which existed wherever there was a European community, and that the character of the library depended on the tastes and reading interests of the club members.1 It further commented : The majority of the European population do not appear to feel the need of more library provision than a European club, a Government Department, or a circulating library attached to a mission bookshop or to a commercial firm can supply, in addition to subscriptions to Book Clubs, etc. in Europe. We are of the opinion that any general library service should be for all communities, including Europeans, and that neither the size of the European population nor their demand for further provision of books makes it possible or advisable to ask for special grants for increased library services for Europeans only.2

It was also strongly recommended that some elementary library training be provided in West Africa, relating it “to the management of the school or college library. Later library schools (such as the one at Hampton Institute, U.S.A.) will have to be considered”.3 Because Nigeria was a former British colony, one is apt to fail to recognize the extent of American influence on the development of Nigerian higher education and librarianship. Just as the first British interest in African higher education was stimulated by the 1923 report of the PhelpsStokes Fund of New York,4 so did the first effort to create a library open to the public and the first suggestion to establish library training institute in Nigeria made by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Margaret Wrong, in her report, submitted two separate proposals for Southern and Northern Nigeria, “because conditions are so different in South and North that for library purposes Nigeria should be considered in two units”.5 Northern Nigeria, which was strongly Islamic, and scarcely receptive to Western education and ideas, had much less reading public in the Western sense than Southern Nigeria, which had been strongly exposed to Christianity and Western education as early as the 1840’s. The Elliot Commission on Higher Education in West Africa found, during its visit to Nigeria in 1943-44, that, in Northern Nigeria, only 1.7% of school age children were at school, and in Southern Nigeria, 17*7%.s 1 Margaret Wrong. LOG.cit. 2 Ibid., Ibid.,

3

p. 2. p. 10.

4 Phelps-Stokes Fund (1922). Education New York. 6 Margaret Wrong. Op. cit., p. 13. 6 Walter Elliot. Op. cit., p. 20.

Aftica.

in AfriGa: A Study of West, South and Equatorial

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The grants, to be used for three consecutive years, which were recommended to the Colonial Office, London, to seek from the Carnegie Corporation for library development in Northern and Southern Nigeria, were thus highly disproportionate to the population of both areas.1 (see Table I). TABLE

I

Grants Nigeria Northern Southern

1939

1940

1941

L650.00 &2500

E300.00 E3300

E300.00 &2300

Population (estimated)

Total

El250 A7100

11 000 9 000

000 000

As for library training, Miss Wrong specifically recommended that Miss Ethel Fegan, a British librarian, who had worked in the Education Department in Northern Nigeria and was in 1939 employed by the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association in Nigeria, establish a library training institute at Ibadan to serve Southern Nigeria and then explore the possibilities of similar training in Government college, Kaduna, for Northern Nigeria. 2 The Carnegie acceptance of the basic recommendations of this report led to three significant developments in 1940. First the foundation made three substantial grants to Nigeria; (a) $3000, for school and college books, (b) $1412, for books for Lagos public libraries, (c) $27 323, f or d eve 1oping regional libraries and reading rooms.3 The second and most important development is that, for the first time, the colonial government at Lagos demonstrated an interest in library matters, by the creation of the Standing Committee to Advise Government on Provision of Libraries. This was the actual beginning of the gestation of the national library concept inherent in the constitutional mandate of the committee whose advisory function was, at least in theory, nation-wide. The third development was a sponsorship of another library survey of British West Africa by the Carnegie Corporation, as a follow-up to the 1939 report. Far from establishing two library training programs for Northern and Southern Nigeria or from instituting training programs in the individual countries of British West Africa, Miss Ethel Fegan, who undertook the 1940 survey,4 recommended a single “Temporary Training School” for West Africa, “to be administered by a European l Margaret Wrong. Op. cit., pp. 14 & 16. a Ibid., p. 15. 3 Florence Anderson, Op., cit., p. 99. 4 Ethel Fegan (1942). R@ort on Library Jvccds in British Corporation for the Colonial Office, London.

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for three years or so. Although training of at least a year should be given to carefully selected candidates, men or women of good education, not under 25 preferably, and of some experience in teaching or administration. Two or three might be sent from each colony, and after a careful training they should return to their own countries to take charge of some one library in that country and to train their own assistants”.r Emphasizing the need for indigenous librarians, the Fegan report maintained that “if the best use is to be made of the libraries, they must be in the charge, or under surveillance of a trained librarian . . . The librarians should be Africans both to ensure continuity of service and because . . . a well qualified man should best serve his own people”.2 The regional library training institute, designed to serve Gambia, the Gold Coast, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, was set up at Achimota College, in the Gold Coast in 1944 for an experimental period of three years, under the directorship of Ethel Fegan. Opened with fourteen students (six from the Gold Coast, six from Nigeria and two from Sierra Leone), the institute was financed jointly by the British Council and by the governments of the Gold Coast, Nigeria and Sierra Leone from the funds provided by the Carnegie Corporation. Ironically, while the Elliot Commission on Higher Education in West Africa3 and the Asquith Commission on Higher Education in the Colonies4 were submitting their reports to the British Parliament recommending in 1945 the immediate establishment of universities and provision of adequate research library facilities, the Advisory Committee of the Achimota School recommended that the Colonial Office in London shut down the library training institute. This was done in 1945, only after one year of the institute’s existence, although it had been experimentally planned for three years’ duration. The rationale for the closure was thus given by the Advisory Committee : The prospect of the establishment of further libraries in which librarians may be employed are, at the present time, remote and the Committee felt that it would be a mistake to enrol students for whom there was no definite prospect of employment. The Committee discussed generally the future of the Librarian’s Training School. It considered that the demand for a Training School would continue for some years to come, but no definite recommendation could be made until Government’s library development policy was formu1ated.s 1 Ibid., p. 1. 2 Ibid. 3 Walter Elliot. Op. cit. 4 Cyril Asquith ( 1945). Report of the Commission on Higher Education in the Colonies. London H.M.S.O. 5 Evelyn Evans (1956). The Deve&wnent of Public Library Service in the Gold Coast. Library Association Pamphlet, no. 14, p. 18. London: Library Association.

:

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In all the former British colonies of West Africa, no definite government policy, mentioned above, was ever formulated until those colonies attained their independence many years later. When university colleges were established in Nigeria and Ghana in 1948, neither country had a single qualified librarian. West Africa had to wait for another 15 years before a library school, designed to produce librarians and not library assistants as in the defunct Achimota School whose graduates were to have received their full professional training in England, was founded at the University College, Ibadan, in 1960, with the Carnegie Funds. The closure of the Achimota school in 1945 stunted and impeded the early efforts being made by the Carnegie Corporation to produce a corps of librarians who would have led the movement for the expansion of library services in West Africa. This was then the end of the foundational efforts toward creating modern libraries in Nigeria. The next and more important phase in Nigerian library history begins with the establishment of the library of the University College, Ibadan, in 1948, although the 1943 arrival of the British Council in Nigeria had a catalytic effect on the evolution of the National Library of Nigeria, and of free public library concept.