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CHAPTER ONE

ELUE Chukwuma .Charles.

BRIEF HISTORY OF LIBRARY

The conscious effort by man to record information has existed long before libraries were
established. Humans, in an effort to transmit their thoughts and visions for public
consumption and also the preservation of culture brought about the idea of writing. The
innate desire to collect these writings for processing and safe keeping from age to age
has metamorphosed to what is now known as libraries.

In discussing the history of library, it will be grouped into three eras, ancient time,
middle age time and the modern time. Ancient time was the early times; writings differ
from empire to empire as what is known to them is what has been agreed by them to
mean something or anything. The Sumerians in present day (West Pakistan) created a
style of writing known as cuneiform writing in which signs were inscribed on wet
clay/tablet and allowed to dry up for permanent finishing.

However, these clay tablets are stored in different area of disciplines such as poetic
works, agriculture and medicine neatly arranged for use by clienteles. Historically, the
Babylonian empire led by Sargon I conquered Samaria and the cuneiform writing was
infused into their culture however, Assurbanipal the king of Assyria (668-626BC) after
conquering the Babylonians was known to have acquired over thirty thousand (30,000)
clay tablet on all fields of knowledge such as historical records, poetic works, myths and
chronicles, religious texts and astronomical observations etc and these clays were stored
and preserved in his palace at Nineveh which his scribe tanscribed. The clientele of this
library are kings and scholars.
Unfortunately, the empire was conquered by the Persia army and the library was
destroyed. After awhile, libraries were discovered in Egypt and their style of recording
information was hieroglyphics or picture writing on papyrus. Papyrus is gotten from
papyrus reed in which the stem is cut into strips and pressed into sheets to be used as
scrolls. Papyrus does not have long life span.

Medicine, agriculture, government activities were some of the subject areas that were
recorded in the papyrus. The scribes are known to be literate amongst the people hence
they are custodians of these papyrus. Successive kings had libraries in their palaces
prominent amongst them was the library built by King Ptolemy I at Alexandra.

In Asia Minor another library of importance was the Pergamum library which was
established by king Attalus and it was a research and scholarly library consulted mainly
by Kings and scholars. Middle era In the middle era Christianity played a major role in
the development of libraries. It is in the light of the above that libraries are usually sited
or located in monasteries and cathedrals.

Like in the ancient time where scribes were responsible for the upkeep of the library, in
the modern time the priests, Bishops, and monks are responsible for the growth of
libraries. The medium used in recording their information is known as parchment codex
and this replaced the papyrus and not easily perishable. The parchment codex is usually
folded into several parts and sewn. The monks were in charge of the collection of
manuscripts and also their preservation.

A lot of monasteries were established during this period and they became center for the
acquisition and multiplication of Christian documents to spread the teachings of the
gospel. As a result of the vast collections a librarian was appointed in all the monasteries
to efficiently care and preserve these books. Sadly, as time went on the functions of the
monasteries diminished as much attention was not giving to it anymore as a result of
scholarly activities in Europe and many Universities were established. It is worthy to note
that during this middle era in Europe, Islamic libraries were been established especially
in Arab and Asia.

As a matter of fact, the establishment of libraries in the Islamic world greatly increased
the development of libraries in Europe. Besides the religious roles mosques play it also
serve as schools, community centers and libraries for the enlightenment of its populace
and all these gradually leads to another era.
Modern era
The exponential spread of education and the cravings for knowledge quickened the
growth of libraries in the modern era. Facilities for copying manuscripts in the middle
era were put out of use as printing was now done on paper first to be done by the
Chinese and books were produced in large quantities to serve the increase appetite for
knowledge. For the first time books were arranged on the shelves in the Vatican City in
Rome. A lot of libraries were established in Europe, notable among them is the Soborne
library at University of Paris and the State Royal library in France and these libraries
acquire their collections through acquisition, gifts, seizure and amalgamation.

The first public library Act was enacted by the British Parliament in 1850, which gave rise
to many Municipal libraries. Also within these periods many private collections were
developed which would be later donated to major institutions. For example John
Harvard’s personal collections were the pioneer collection of Harvard University Library
also Thomas Jefferson a former America President’s personal collections was bought by
the Library of Congress after the library was burnt down by British soldiers.

It is pertinent to note also that the rapid growth of libraries within these period in 1876
led to the establishment of library Association to promote libraries. The International
Federation of Library Association (IFLA) was established to represent the interest of
library and information services clientele.
Meanwhile, Nigeria is not left out with its desire to promote the interest of library
services hence the Nigeria Library Association (NLA) was established in 1962 as a
division of the West Africa Library Association (WALA) which came on board in 1954
after the UNESCO seminar on the development of public libraries in Africa that held in
Ibadan in 1953.
The objectives of the Nigerian Library Association are as follows:
1. To bring together persons of interest in libraries, librarianship and information
services
2. To protect and promote the professional connectivity of librarians.
3. To encourage the establishment and development of libraries and information
centers.
4. To facilitate legislation affecting libraries and support in the promotion of such
legislation as it affects the creation of libraries and information centers.
5. To mobilize its members to be aware of world best practices associated with the
profession and also encourage training and retraining of its members in
Information Communication Technology.
 Development of Libraries in Nigeria.
There are numerous factors that shaped the history of library development in Nigeria.
Some of these factors are Islamic impact, trans-Atlantic impact, world war veterans,
Nationalist movement and people’s agitation (students, journalists and private
individuals) abolition of slave trade, colonialism, Elliot’s Commission Recommendation
and UNESCO seminar of 1953.

The Trans-Atlantic trade brought in different people with different educational

background and orientation to Nigeria thereby playing a significant role in the
development of library and its growth in Nigeria. However, these educational differences
added innovation into the different sectors of Nigerian economy. It’s been noted also
that informational materials (mainly archrivals) found their way into the country through
Atlantic routes and the Jihad.
Another factor that played a significant role in the development of library in Nigeria is
the missionaries and war veterans. The missionaries such as Catholics, Church
Missionary Society (CMS) and Methodists in promoting their missionary activities
established schools to teach Nigerians how to read and write because as at that time
Nigerians are largely illiterate thus making the spread of the gospel difficult. These
schools were established alongside libraries. Examples of such libraries are Tom Jones
library founded in 1910 in Lagos and also the British Council Library in 1943 also in
Lagos.
Of all the roles these factors above played, the Elliot Commission played an immense
role in the sense that it was set up primarily to investigate the imbalance in education in
Nigeria. The Elliot Commission’s recommendation was very instrumental to library
development in Nigeria and other English African countries. The Commission’s
recommendations are stated below:
1. Establishment of University in Ibadan in 1948.
2. Establishment of University library.
3. Establishment of library school to train librarians.
4. Establishment of University of Legion, Ghana.
In 1984, based on the recommendations of the Elliot Commission the University of
Ibadan was established also a University library was established to meet the academic
and research needs of the institution. Thereafter, a library school was established to
educate would be librarians, the first head of the library school is a Briton, named John
Harris.
Another, body named the UNESCO seminar was set up to majorly look into library
development in Nigeria. The recommendations however, had positive effects on library
development in Nigeria. It is after this recommendation that National libraries, public
libraries, and Academic libraries were established in Nigeria. It is also one of the
recommendations of the UNESCO seminar that sought the formation of West Africa
Library Association (WALA) and in the year 1962, WALA was dissolved and the Nigeria
Library Association (NLA) was birthed at the instance that all countries that made up
(WALA) had got independence.
Also, as part of the merit of UNESCO seminar, three types of libraries emerged in Nigeria
and they are:-
Municipal library in Lagos
Regional libraries in Enugu, Benin, Kaduna, and Ibadan.
Foreign libraries in Embassy for example United States Information Services (USIS) these
libraries holds a volume of books of one thousand to ten thousand copies. Within 1957
to 1963 some special libraries sprang up in various parts of the Nigeria. These special
libraries were established primarily to support and foster achievement of organizational
goals and objectives. Some of these special libraries are named below:-
1. Federal Institute of Industrial Research Library (FIIRL) in 1957.
2. Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research Library (NISERL) in 1950
3. Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) in 1964
4. Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) in 1963 and a host of others.
Library development recorded steady growth in parts of Nigeria. For example in the East
the Eastern Library Board was established and it ended up a joint venture between
UNESCO and Eastern Regional Government. UNESCO took care of staff, equipments and
books while the Eastern Government provided the funds. During the Civil War majority
of the libraries were destroyed but the Federal Government made frantic efforts to
reconstruct and restock the libraries in the war zone area.
Library development in the Northern Region was quite different from the Eastern and
Western Region as it was rumored that all reading rooms were converted to libraries by
the British Government in other to publicize their culture, tradition and democracy.
However, the idea did not work and this retarded library growth in the north. Thereafter,
in 1962, Mr. Sharr was invited from Australia to ascertain why and make
recommendations, the title of Sharr report was Library Needs in Northern Nigeria and
they are:-
Training librarians
Adequate funding of libraries
Establishment of all types of library
Recruitment of para-library staff
And thus far, the implementation of the recommendations greatly accelerated library
development in the north. The creation of twelve states in Nigeria in 1967 aided the
establishment of libraries in Kaduna, Borno, Sokoto, Jos, Makurdi, Illorin etc.

REFERENCES
Ademodi, D.T (2005) History of library. In Akinfolarin, W.A (ed) effective use of the
library. Akure: Yemipet Publishers.

The History of Library (2001) retrieved from http://www. History

magazine.com/libraies.html.

The History of Libraries through the Ages (2001) Retrived http://www.Zen college
life.com. The History of libraries through the ages/the role of libraries in
Education(nd)https://www.inforscience today.org/library. Science/the-role org.libraries.in
education. Html.

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