All is now set for the 9th edition of the annual Jire Olanlokun Memorial Lecture Series which is billed to come up on Thursday, 10th September 2015 at the Julius Berger Hall of the University of Lagos. The guest lecturer is Dr. Mrs. Rilwan Abdu Salami, President, Nigerian Library Association while the Chairman of the event will be Mrs. Victoria O. Okojie, Registrar, Librarians Registration council of Nigeria (LRCN)
This year’s edition promises to uphold the demonstrable objective of the Foundation to proffer far-reaching solutions to the problems militating against the establishment of best in class library services as backbone for the development of the nation’s tertiary education sub-sector.
The Jire Olanlokun Memorial Lecture series was inaugurated in 2007 to keep alive the legacy of Late Dr. Simeon Olajire Olanlokun who until his death on March 15, 2006 was the University Librarian of the University of Lagos. Upon his death, a group friends and associates instituted a memorial lecture in his honour and a Foundation called the Jire Olanlokun Educational Foundation (JOEF).
The inaugural edition of the Lecture series was delivered by Professor Olu Olat Lawal, the University Librarian, University of Calabar, Nigeria. The paper, with ‘Centralization of Library service in academic communities: a paradigm of best practices’ as the topic, examined various aspects of best practices in university librarianship that sustain services to academic clientele in university communities. Professor Lawal established that the quality of services provided by the library directly affects the quality of the academic programmes of the university and their products.
The second lecture delivered by Professor Matthew Idowu Ajibero examined the historical development of library and information science education in Nigeria, the impact of Information and Communication technology (ICT) and its implications for library and information science education and faculty members.
Dr. (Mrs.) Idowu delivered the third lecture on challenges of e-resources and internet accessibility for library service in Nigeria. The lecture examined the evolution of resources in the library; reviewed the state of library and information science; probed into the current library services and explored the challenges facing librarians in the country today and prospects for their future. Dr. Idowu quoted Joan Frye: “Libraries should be about relationships rather than transactions and libraries should be more and more a place to do stuff not just to find stuff, we need to stop being a grocery store and being a kitchen”.
In his contribution to the 4th edition of the Jire Olanlokun Memorial Lecture Series, Dr. Benedict Oladele discussed the topic titled “Setting agenda for library quality assurance in Nigerian University System”. He justified the critical role of education, particularly tertiary education in the economic, social and political development of the nation. He submitted that the position of the libraries in these institutions is critical to the achievement of their mandate of teaching, learning, research and community service.
The fifth in the series which was delivered by Dr. Manir Abdullahi Kamba had as topic – E-learning 2.0: a beacon of hope for higher education in Nigeria. He established that various methods of education delivery have evolved to meet the need of those in search of education. These methods ranged from traditional and distance education methods to e-learning. Dr. Kamba discussed in detail the new approach – e-learning as a tool for capturing the general intent to support a broad range of electronic media to make vocational and traditional learning more flexible and accessible for students. Dr. Kamba concluded that e-learning has the prospects of preparing Nigerian graduates for leadership and management roles in national and economic development.
The Jire Olanlokun Foundation has received immense support from the Management of University of Lagos, which has published the first five in the series of the Lecture on behalf of the Foundation in addition to providing logistic support for this year’s edition.
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