The Role of Libraries in Supporting Agricultural Policy Research in Nigeria

This short brief summarizes results from an IFPRI assessment of the capacity of Nigerian libraries within the National Agriculture Research System (NARS) to support agricultural policy research.

The main conclusions:

To support a transition to 'virtual libraries', the university libraries in Nigeria "need to develop appropriate infrastructure, strengthen their staff capacity, build consortia, and strengthen communications."

Infrastructure: The main impediments to Nigeria’s university library system are inadequate power and Internet bandwidth.

Capacity: It is evident that the staffing needs for supporting library users have not been met

Consortia: Efforts are needed to strengthen the few existing library consortia — or to develop a new consortium supporting agriculture research

Communication: The communication gap between library staff and faculty and students results in the underuse of library resources.