CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The public library is a social institution which is tied to the political and social realities of the communities where it is situated. As the name implies, this is a library that serves the public.
UNESCO (1966) defines public library as “Those which serve the population of the community or region free of change or for a nominal fee. It is a library designed to serve the generality of the people.
According to Oduagwu (2002) public libraries that serve the public are supported by government subvention, local rates or charges. He went further to explain that public library is often regarded as a poor man’s university. Its clientele is heterogeneous devoid of race, status, rank, bias as to who would avail of its services. It stocks every conceivable item that would add knowledge, education, research, information and cultural needs of the society. In Nigeria today, each of the 36 states kin the country including Abuja has a public library board established under the public library act as united kingdom (UK), but here in Nigeria, library board of states is established by edict or laws made by the states legislators.
Oparaku, Anyanwu, Madi, (2005) defined a public library as an institution that is set up by the government through enabling law, funded and mentioned are expected to meet the educational, informational and recreational needs of its community, public library funding refers to making money available for the day running of the library. Funding here deals with making money or funds available to public libraries.
Finance is the life wire of any establishment including land, labour, capitals and entrepreneur and information. The capital here refers to finance which can be used to procure other factors of production there by making it more important than others. Fund is obviously the major element in every establishment. It is equally the working capital of an establishment.
Public library funding generally means the various ways we derive the expected funds for capital and recurrent expenses. It involves the money available or allocation to library for running its day to day activities.
However, the funding and financial allocations to public libraries have remained poor decades. Public libraries needs adequate resources to run their services pay and hire personal provides current information, arrange, organize and monitor both human and materials resources. Nigeria is a developing country and its society is not a reading society. Nigeria do not appreciate the importance and needs of public libraries and the services it offers and this problem reflect in the level of funds allocated to it by the government. State government subventions which constitute about 80% of public library fund is grossly inadequate. This inadequacy is because of the political instability and bad economy of the country. Ulu (1997) for instance, the Imo state library was the first in he country to start services to handicap. But due to lack of fund to train staff and carry out services, there services have been on glow progression.
Late release of fund by the government is another problem, it means things can’t be done when required. All the plans of public library are hampsed by late release of fund. For instance, the public library’s plan is to establish community information services in Imo state did not take off due to late release of fund.
Another problem is the existing infrastructural facilities in most public libraries are inadequate. Their reference materials are too old. There are no separate rooms for music library and audio-visual materials, and no rooms for serious readers especially those carrying out research works.