Influence of Libraries in Building a Virile Reading Nation: Challenges and Strategies in Starting Early (Published)
That the nation Nigeria is continually being described as a nation with poor reading culture with declining standard of education is a painful fact we have lived with for years. To reverse this trend and develop virile reading culture in the country, the paper examined the role and influence of the libraries as institutions with the mandate to support teaching, learning and doing research through the instrumentality of language and reading. The paper also examined the roles the stakeholders could play individually and collectively as a viable strategy in developing enduring reading culture in Nigeria through systemic thinking as theoretical construct. With the centrality of libraries the various influences of such stakeholders as governments, parents, teachers, booksellers, publishers, authors, and non-governmental organizations could easily be coordinated for positive and desired effect. The paper recommends adequate funding of libraries being the central player that is saddled with the responsibility of driving the acquisition of reading skills among citizenry of the nation.
Keywords: Acquisition, Libraries, Reading skills, language and language, reading culture