COMMUNITY AND PRIVATE SECTOR PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTH EAST NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to investigate, among others, the: extent to which the private sector and the communities participate in community library development; factors that influence their participation; and challenges of community library development through community and private sector participation. Seven research questions and five hypotheses (tested at 0.05 level of significance) were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted descriptive survey research design and the population for the study was 2,052 communities, private sector representatives, and Directors of Library Services.  This is made up of 2,047 Traditional Rulers of Autonomous Communities and the 5 Directors of Library Services in the five states of South East Nigeria. The traditional rulers, most of who are entrepreneurs, represent the private sector and also the communities. Yaro Yemane’s formula was used to determine the 335 respondents (Traditional Rulers and Directors of Library Services) obtained as the sample size of the population while Bowley’s proportional allocation formula was applied to determine the proportion of respondents for each of the five states. A researcher-designed questionnaire titled ‘questionnaire on community and private sector participation in community library development in South-East Nigeria’ and a structured interview schedule were used as the instruments for data collection. The instruments were face validated by three experts. The validated questionnaire was trial-tested using Cronbach Coefficient Alpha Formula. The outcome of the trial-test shows that the questionnaire has a reliability co-efficient index of 0.74. Data collected through the questionnaire were coded, analyzed and presented by the use of descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings of the study reveal that:  the private sector and the communities participate to a little extent in community library development; community and private sector participation, to a little extent, contributed to community library development; and poor/inadequate enlightenment, poor leadership, ineffective mobilization of the people and the private sector, unfavourable government policy were among the challenges associated with community and private sector participation in community library development in South East Nigeria. Some of the recommendations of the study include that community leaders and community-based organizations should mobilize the people and the private sector towards increased community library development actions; and that librarians and library associations should create awareness on the need for community participation in Community Library Development and also mobilize the community leaders and the private sector to get increasingly involved in the development of community libraries.