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This paper aims to examine the current trends, needs and opportunities of professionalism in librarianship in Nigeria. The broad purpose of the paper was to investigate the level of professionalism in librarianship and to ascertain the current status, trends and opportunities within the profession among academic librarians in Nigeria. Five specific research questions were formulated which are: to examine how librarians value librarianship as a profession, to elicit the efforts made by librarians with regards to professional development, to ascertain methods of acquiring current competencies within the profession, to investigate the role of professional bodies in promoting professionalism and excellence within the library and information science (LIS) profession and to proffer strategies to enhance professionalism and excellence among librarians in Nigeria.

Descriptive survey design was adopted in the study across both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The area of the study was the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State and the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka Anambra State. Population of the study comprised a total of 63 librarians in the two universities. All librarians were sampled because of the small sample size. The instrument for data collection was oral interview and questionnaire which contained 53 items derived from the research questions and built on a four-point scale of Strongly Agree (SA), Agree, (A) Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD). The criterion mean was 2.50. Therefore, any calculated mean below 2.50 was adjudged a negative score, while any mean from 2.50 and above was regarded as a positive score.

The study revealed the challenges facing professionalism and excellence within the LIS field as lack of funding for professional development, lack of sponsorship to workshops and conferences, lack of uninterruptible internet facility and a dearth of professional mentors in the South East zone. Other problems gathered from a scheduled interview with some senior professionals in the institutions revealed that most librarians are still facing the challenge of imbibing and utilizing emerging skills in the LIS professions such as digital archiving and data mining skills for their day-to-day activities.

Recommendations arising from the study were proffered such as the creation of staff development programmes by management; collaboration and partnership by libraries within the zone; acquisition of training through workshops and conferences irrespective of sponsorship by the institutions; and teaming of academic librarians to enhance their visibility and publication output. International staff exchanges and opportunities for sabbatical leave, which hitherto was not common in the South East Zone, were recommended. Among other recommendations also were building of consortia with libraries in the country; LIS professional bodies helping to create visibility and prestige of the LIS profession; and, finally, to scale up the image of the profession the marketing of library products through profiling of patrons and furnishing them with required information has not only become necessary but critical.

This paper aims to examine and discuss the crucial roles libraries play in e‐learning; the challenges and opportunities facing the e‐learning program and the library's involvement.

To elicit the necessary information, a literature review of studies done on e‐learning and libraries was done. Materials were sourced online and offline to build the literature of this work. The paper gives an overview of e‐learning and types; benefits of e‐learning; the infancy stage of e‐learning, libraries, and e‐learning technologies; starting points for libraries and e‐learning and challenges facing e‐learning.

A lot of challenges are facing the successful implementation of e‐learning in institutions and also the role of libraries in enhancing e‐learning needs a lot of issues to be addressed as library's involvement in e‐learning is found to be very crucial.

This paper establishes that libraries are the heart of institutions and so, are meant to play a vital role in the learning activities, as well as support all kinds of learning which includes e‐learning. There is also need for librarians to be trained in adopting e‐learning technologies and collaborating with faculties and departments in tutoring the learners.

The study possesses two characteristics that make it different from other studies in the related area. First of all, it provides a theoretical basis for librarians to be actively involved in e‐learning as it listed some responsibilities of the library and librarians in executing e‐learning programmes. Secondly, the paper proposes six laws (Sm²U²L) to govern e‐learning and libraries.

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.