Abstract

University libraries, generally, provide information services designed to support the achievement of the broad mandate of their parent institutions. Perhaps, it is pertinent to reiterate that, all over the world, the core mandate of universities have been partitioned to three broad areas, to wit: research, publication and community services (Nnadozie, 2007). It is for this reason that university libraries shape their structure, organize their functions and tailor all their operations and services to assist their parent institutions' achieve their mandate. Although classical Library and Information Science (LIS) professional textbooks indicate what the ideal university library should be, practical reality shows that there are slight differences in various universities. Such variations, where they exist, are functions of funding, legislation and administrative predispositions. However, on close scrutiny, it is evident that the major preoccupations of university libraries in Nigeria are not quite different or detached from the global professional trends in librarianship and LIS scholarship.