Case Study of Open Access practices: Limitations and Opportunities in Public Libraries in Nigeria

The mandate of public libraries in Nigeria is to serve the information needs of the general public by facilitating open access to information and ideas, including those found in cultural heritage materials. Public libraries are usually accessible by the general public and are usually funded by government and public funds like taxes and levies. They accomplish this by providing public access to a collection of printed, written, or visual materials, computers and the Internet, serving as technology access points for communities.

ASCOHT E-Library by Obuezie CC BY-SA 4.0

As libraries transition from a print-based culture to one in which connected digital technology plays an increasingly central role, they face new challenges and opportunities. The way libraries manage their resources for serving their communities will define them as institutions for years to come.

Open Access logo and text by art designer at PLoS CC BY-SA 3.0

Open access is viewed as any material such as digital heritage collections consisting of artworks, photographs, audio-visuals that is freely available on the public internet, permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.

Open access practices in Nigerian libraries are still in the emerging stage and vary in their use across different categories of libraries such as the national, public, academic and private libraries.

Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC):

This is a computerized library catalogue that is available to the public, it provides bibliographic information about resources in the library collection which includes books, magazines, newspapers and audio-visuals. OPAC has helped improve access to resources in a library’s collection by assisting information searchers and seekers to discover the various resources of the library in a faster way using different access points. The following information may be requested: author, title, subject, call number, location and availability status, dates and times of availability. By using the OPAC, information searchers and seekers can access bibliographic records of a variety of available information resources in the library independently.

Institutional Repositories:

An Institutional Repository is a digital collection of research and scholarly output from a university, scholarly society or other institution. It can function as an open access repository by providing free access to scholarly works and related content in digital form. Institutional Repositories are an important part of institutional open access policies to broaden access to research outputs. They offer the opportunity for academic libraries to collect, preserve and disseminate an institution’s scholarly output.

The University of Jos was the first higher institution in Nigeria to set up an Institutional Repository in 2009. Nigeria currently has 21 Institutional Repositories which are listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) and tops the list of journals listed in the Africa Journals Online (AJOL) with 221 journal titles while only 71 are open access journals.

The Nigerian Copyright Act:

The Nigerian Copyright act is the legal instrument that regulates copyright in Nigeria.

The second schedule (Exceptions from Copyright Control) of the Act introduces some exceptions and empowers public libraries to make available works to the public under the following conditions:

(q) the making of not more than three copies of a book (including a pamphlet, sheet music, map, chart or plan) by or under the direction of the person in charge of a public library for the use of the library if such a book is not available for sale in Nigeria;

(r) the reproduction for the purpose of research or private study of an unpublished literary or musical work kept in a library, museum or other institutions to which the public has access;

(s) reproduction of published work in Braille for the exclusive use of the blind, and sound recordings made by institutions or other establishments approved by the Government for the promotion of the welfare of other disabled persons for the exclusive use of such blind or disabled persons.

Currently, there is no copyright exemption for works made by or commissioned by the Nigerian Government according to section 4 of the Nigerian copyright act.

(1) Copyright shall be conferred by this section on every work which is eligible for copyright and is made by or under the direction or control of the Government, a State authority or a prescribed International body.

(2) The term of copyright conferred by this section shall be calculated in accordance with the table set out in the First Schedule to this Act.

There’s a need for this provision to be reviewed urgently.

Expressions of Folklore

Section 31 of the Nigerian Copyright Act defines folklore as “a group-oriented and tradition-based creation of groups or individuals reflecting the expectation of the community as an adequate expression of its cultural and social identity, its standards and values as transmitted orally, by imitation or by other means including

(a) folklore, folk poetry, and folk riddles;

(b) folk songs and instrumental folk music;

(c) folk dances and folk plays;

(d) productions of folk arts in particular, drawings, paintings, carvings, sculptures,

pottery, terracotta, mosaic, woodwork, metalware, jewelry, handicrafts, costumes, and indigenous textiles.”

Yeye Omi, a traditional Yemoja goddess worshiper by Braimah Abdulrasak CC BY-SA 4.0

Folk dances in Nigeria include the Yoruba Bata and Igbo Atilogwu, while the Yoruba Aso-Oke, Batik, and Tie-and-Dye are examples of indigenous textiles found in Nigerian folklore.

The act prohibits the reproduction and communication to the public by way of performance, broadcast and distribution, of expressions of folklore. It also prohibits the adaptation, translation and other transformations of expressions of folklore for commercial purposes or their expressions outside of their traditional or customary context.

The use of a cultural ritual hymn for secular objectives, could be considered disrespectful and represent a use outside of its usual context. Where folklore expressions are used in a printed book or in any work disseminated to the general public, the source must be indicated, especially if the source is known. It is expected that the source is acknowledged by naming the community from which the folklore term originated.

The difficulty in identifying the source of folklore when used stems from the fact that it might be difficult to determine the particular origin or community from which an expression of folklore originated, due to the similarity of folklore expressions among Nigerian ethnic groups. In Nigeria, some taboos govern people’s beliefs. Most tribes find it difficult to share information with researchers for fear of breaking one or more taboos or perhaps offending the gods.

Lisabi rite exercise in Abeokuta, Nigeria by Kaizenify, CC BY-SA 4.0

The authorization of the Nigerian Copyright Commission must be sought and obtained when and where expressions of folklore are to be used. This further makes access difficult.

Compared to works created by identifiable individuals and protected by copyright, expressions of folklore are sometimes formed by the community, and their creators are often unknown because they may be of ancient antiquity. It is impractical to seek permission from an individual creator because it was not developed individually, but communally.

The Institute of African Studies established in 1962 at the University of Ibadan has in its collections, thousands of:

• Audio cassettes (containing recorded audio of the proceedings of various cultural practices such as ceremonies, deity worshipping, initiations, festivals, folklore etc.
• Books on various cultural topics.
• Journals on various cultural topics.
• Pictures of various artistic works.

However, access to these resources is accessible by students and researchers based on formal requests. The University of Ibadan Cultural Heritage Museum has an amazing collection of over three hundred pieces of fabric, wooden, ceramics and metal cultural objects of different ethnic groups in Nigeria on display in the museum. These objects have also been digitized and can be accessed, it is currently free and open to everybody.

Wiki Loves Folklore is an international contest where photographs, video, and audio about local folk culture are contributed to Wikimedia Commons under free licenses to be used on Wikipedia and any other places with attribution. This contest is focused on the folk culture of different regions. The campaign is targeted at protecting the world’s intangible cultural heritage. The campaign in past editions has helped in documenting some of the various expressions of folklore among the different ethnic groups in Nigeria.

Nigerian Language Oral History Documentation Project:

The Wikimedia Nigeria User Group carried out a Grassroots Language Documentation project in 2021. The project aimed at preserving, documenting and digitization of oral history of Nigerian indigenous languages and promoting its use on relevant Wikipedia articles in English, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo. The project recorded oral history videos and audio. These materials were uploaded on Wikimedia Commons for educational purposes and reuse on Wikipedia articles. The audiovisuals were also hosted on Wikitongues, the United States Library of Congress, and the Internet Archive.

Challenges

Some challenges that exist in adopting open access practices in Nigerian libraries include lack of awareness about open access, open licensing and best practices of knowledge dissemination. This explains the non-existence of Open Access policies for many Nigerian libraries, education and cultural heritage institutions. Where there are no clearly stated policies, the concept of open access can’t be fully integrated and adopted. It’s therefore very important to develop a functional framework for its adoption and practice.

The African Libraries Association and SPARC recently signed a memorandum of understanding to make available training opportunities for African Librarians to learn more about Open Access and how to adapt the concept to work in Africa. African Librarians are being taught Open Licensing and Open Access to help them know the information resources that are freely available and those that they can adapt or even translate.

Activities related to the development of digital cultural heritage are expensive because of the huge cost of digitization and processing of digital information. The long term duration for the preservation of digitized heritage content required to ensure future access also contributes to the cost of digitization. Funding for cultural heritage institutions and the sustainability of the cultural heritage activities at the institution is a major issue.

The digital divide in Nigeria manifested in poor internet connectivity and power supply, outdated and inadequate equipment, facilities and ICT infrastructure in the deployment of open access practices. Libraries are poorly funded and there is a lack of commitment from the government to ensure that libraries function optimally.

Open access will increase equity of access by ensuring creativity, innovation, and knowledge generation around the public domain artworks stewarded by cultural institutions, this may be affected by inadequate infrastructure, digital divide and skills gap by staff and users.

There also exists the fear and distrust that the jobs of librarians would be threatened by open access practice and open licensing. This leads to sticking with the traditional method of service delivery in libraries.

Conclusion

Raising awareness about open access and capacity building through workshops, seminars and conferences is important. The Nigeria Library Association also needs to be engaged in this regard. This would help ensure faster adoption of open access practices in libraries. Libraries need to be supported with adequate ICT facilities and it is important that digital skills are improved, starting from the staff of the cultural heritage institutions and then the users. This would enable the public to make optimum use of digital cultural heritage information systems and services.

Relevant legislation should be enacted to mandate all university and higher education institutions libraries to set up and maintain an open access institutional repository. These efforts would ensure the preservation of materials, the increased shareability of resources, and the wider visibility of Nigerian libraries and their cultural heritage collections.