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A survey was conducted to investigate the information needs and information seeking patterns of medical students at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (Lautech) Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria. 54 questionnaires were sent out to medical students for compilation of data for this survey out of which 53 or 98% were received and analysed. The survey revealed that 70% respondents spent 3–8 hours in the Library to consult books that are relevant to their areas of specialisation, and 68% of this category approach Lautech Library staff for various assistance in the course of searching for books of their choice. All of the sample agreed that the Library staff are always willing to assist. Various suggestions were made by the respondents for the improvement of the Library and staff alike.

Reviews the provision of textbooks at all levels of the Nigerian educational system. Suggests that there is a great shortage of books at all levels of education, but the most acute being at the tertiary level due to an overwhelming dependence on imported books. Reveals that libraries promoting scholarship are limited to elite and private schools which are models which cannot be replicated on a national scale. Articulates the implications of the dearth of books for an informed citizenry and for national development and suggests some solutions to improve the availability and accessibility of books in Nigeria.

Surveys factors affecting the reading habits of secondary school students in Ogbomoso State in Nigeria and discusses the results. Highlights the following inhibiting factors: the family background of students where few homes are conducive to reading owing to noise and lack of reading materials; the lack of functional libraries in most of the schools surveyed and a similar lack of trained librarians or teacher librarians; the failure to provide library periods in schools; language teachers and shortage of equipment and resources for teaching reading skills; and a heavy reliance on school texts, although students show willingness to read more broadly, e.g. newspapers and novels.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dissatisfaction of library users and the manager of each federal university library vis‐à‐vis the complaint of the librarians working in those libraries on inadequate funding, lack of promotion, poor condition of service and lack of recognition which affected their career commitment.

Questionnaires were used to gather data from a population of 381 librarians in the 24 federal university Libraries in Nigeria. A total of 363 of them responded and their questionnaires were found to be valid for analysis. The response rate achieved was 95.3 percent.

The study found that job satisfaction has significant influence on career commitment of librarians working in the federal university libraries (F (9; 352) = 11.058, p < 0.05). The study also revealed that demographic variables and job satisfaction accounted for 20 percent (adj. R² = 0.2000) in variability of career commitment of the respondents.

The study ought to have generated data on demographic variables and job satisfaction as they affect career commitment of library paraprofessionals (library officers, library attendants and assistants) since they all carry essential library function.

It is recommended that the library administrators and the managers of the university libraries should consider the demographic variables and job satisfaction of librarians when planning and making decisions on their career commitment.

The library managers and administrators in federal university libraries in Nigeria should formulate job satisfaction policies such as adequate provision of working facilities, provision of conducive working environment, work incentives (car loan, housing loan, study leave allowance, etc) for improving career commitment of their librarians.

The paper provides valuable information on the career commitment of librarians in federal university libraries in Nigeria.

This paper discusses book sufficiency and press efficiency as necessary tools for man, nation and development in Nigeria. The study concludes that: there is book scarcity at all levels of the educational system in Nigeria due to the non‐encouragement of local publishers and authors; the western part of the country has most of the textbooks available (in English, maths and science) in the country, followed by the eastern part where book piracy is at about 50‐70 per cent, while it is grossly inadequate in the northern part of the country. Uneven distribution of the few available books in the country results in non‐functional libraries in primary schools and few functional ones in secondary schools. The heavy dependency on foreign textbooks and journals at the tertiary level of the educational system should be discouraged, so that indigenous technology is encouraged. Recommendations are made to the Federal government of Nigeria.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the growth of academic librarians’ research output in Nigeria; it examined their research productivity and determined the authorship pattern and degree of collaboration.

A total of 1,106 articles were retrieved from Current index to Journals in Education and Library, Information Science and Technology Abstract databases for the period 2000-March 2018.

The study revealed that only few authors are productive in the field of Library and Information Science in Nigeria during the period under study. The author productivity pattern is, therefore, in agreement with Lotka’s Law of inverse square. Top journals in which the academic librarians in Nigeria publish their works were identified. Of the 153 recognized universities in Nigeria, the study revealed that only few universities are productive. The years 2011 and 2012 recorded the highest contributions by the academic librarians. The findings also showed a high level of teamwork with most publications being produced jointly.

The limitation of this study is that it only retrieved articles that were indexed by Current index to Journals in Education and Library, Information Science and Technology Abstract. Secondly, articles published by the academic librarians in local journals in Nigeria that are not indexed and not visible are not included in the study.

The findings call for researchers in developing countries to recognize that it is important to publish a substantial number of papers in journals that are indexed and are widely visible.