BEING AN ORIENTATION ADDRESS FOR 2010/2011 ACADEMIC SESSION DELIVERED BY PROF. (MRS.) FELICIA E. ETIM, THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN, ON SATURDAY 26TH MARCH 2011
To this end, I specially welcome you to the University of Uyo Library, also known as the Nyong Essien Library.
Libraries have more than 1,000 years of history, and they have been at the center of universities since their earliest foundation. Before the widespread use of printing, libraries were safe repositories for rare and very expensive books and manuscripts. With the adoption of the mechanical printing press, books very rapidly became mass market commodities, which could be on loan to the general public. Libraries came to address the needs of a much wider section of the community and in many places become centers of community culture and learning.
The coming of the information technology revolution of the last 30 years has changed the role of libraries just as radically as did the mechanical printing press. Before the arrival of the internet, academic staff and their partner librarians were gate-keepers to information, ensuring that students had access to the resources they needed. That scenario has changed dramatically and today, a vast quantity of information is available at the click of a mouse.
All the information a student could possibly want is out there somewhere in cyber space. As more and more information becomes available, students need navigators through the new landscape. You need help and guidance in finding information and in filtering the wheat from the chaff. There is an unimaginable quantity of garbage out there.
With social networking sites and blogs, much of what is readily available is immoderate and subject to no quality filter. The open access sharing of information and user moderated sites such as the Wikipedia where the users are the editors is an exciting new world, but it carries dangers.
You can see that the new information landscape has no structure, no context and no road maps. It can reinforce prejudices as well as lead to misunderstanding of issues. You therefore need the University Library, not just as another student services, but also as a fundamental facility to guide you in the learning process. The University Library will work with your lecturers to enable you have access to the library resources you need. They will help you distinguish the propaganda from the balanced argument of research.
Thus increasingly, the University Library shall partner with you in your academic endeavors as have always been. This is not to be done in a spirit of censorship, but as a continuation of the ancient academic tradition of guidance and assistance to the learning process.
For students to study and become successful learners in any problem solving environment, it is critical that they acquire high level skills and abilities to
· Recognize a need for information
· Distinguish ways in which information gaps can be addressed;
· Construct strategies to locate and retrieve information from the print and electronic resources available in the university library
· Locate and access the information
· Compare and evaluate information found; and
· Demonstrate an ability to apply information accessed to appropriate problem solving situations.
The University of Uyo Library
The University of Uyo operates a multi-library system at the campus locations namely;
i) The central library at the Town Campus servicing the Faculties of Arts, Basic Medical Sciences, Education, Science, Social Science and Pharmacy.
ii) The Annex Libraries at the Annex Campus servicing the Faculties of Agriculture, Business Administration, Environmental Studies and Law.
iii) There are strong Faculty Libraries for Engineering (Main Campus); Medicine (UUTH); Education and Pharmacy (Town Campus); Law and Agriculture (annex campus)
The User Group/Service Hours
The University Library services a student population of about 18,000 and a staff population of about 4,000. The Opening hours are:
8.00 am – 9.30pm. Mondays to Fridays; and
8.00 am – 2.00pm. on Saturdays.
The Libraries are closed on Sundays and official public holidays.
Membership and Registration
Membership in the university library is open to all categories of staff and students of the university. To be a registered member, readers must complete the library registration forms at the circulation desk. Readers on completion and return of these forms are issued with readers’ ticket with his or her passport affixed after having been recommended by the readers’ Head of Department and countersigned by the University Librarian.
This card entitles the reader to use and borrow books from the library. Library registration is valid for the current academic year only and must be renewed thereafter. Other readers may be admitted only with the express permission of the university librarian.
The Library Collection
The University of Uyo Library system, wherever located stocks a variety of materials in various disciplines including books, journals, magazines, reports, government documents, pamphlets, reprints, compact discs read only memory, diskettes and video tapes.
The book volume changes with regular acquisition. As at December 2010, the collection volume stood at :
Books and monographs - 81,500 volumes
Periodicals - 1,580 titles
University of Uyo Library subscribes to some local and international dailies, projects, Theses and Dissertations of University of Uyo. While the texts, journals and reference sources are kept on the open shelves, others are kept in the special collections unit.
In addition, the University eLibrary subscribes to the following online databases with over 6,000,000 ebooks and 2,000,000 ejournals in all the major academic disciplines.
UNIVERSITY OF UYO LIBRARY E-RESOURCES
User Name: UNIYO
Password: eresources
(Pls note: It is case sensitive and the spelling is correct)
Website: www.nigerianvirtuallibrary.com
Username: uniuyo
Password: Uyo
EBSCO Host (Still on the NUC website)
Username: ns021819
Password: password
userID: ag-nga072
Password: FNGMEQt9
(Pls note: It is case/format sensitive)
Username: uyouninig
All patrons of the library are invited to participate in the global online social network through the following Library 2.0 facilities of the University Library:
The University Librarian shall post latest information on the Library services. Both staff and students are encouraged to react as necessary. Registered students are also encouraged to interact with the University Librarian on FaceBook to post their comments and suggestions on book acquisitions, etc.
Details of the stock and retrieval strategies have been exposed in the course of the lectures planned for you this week. The Library Guide, which will be distributed to you as you register in the library, will give you more information about the use of the university library.
Once again, it is my pleasure to welcome you all to this great university. Advise you to make the most of your experience here. Let the Lord Jesus be your anchor and it shall be well with you.
Professor (Mrs.) Felicia E. Etim
University Librarian
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