THE PLACE OF UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN THE AGE OF E – BOOKS AND CHALLENGES OF SOCIAL READING

This paper highlights the contribution of university libraries to the development of social reading in the age of e – books in Nigeria, the challenges of social reading and the way forward. Various literatures and database on social reading and e - books were consulted by the authors to write this paper. Oral interviews on the contribution of university libraries to social reading were also conducted. The place of university libraries in the age of e - books is very important because it has contributed to the economic, educational, technological and social development of the citizens. The reading habit of the citizens has increased tremendously and reduce the level of illiteracy of Nigerian citizen. However, despite the importance of university libraries in the age of e – books, they are still many challenges of social reading they are lack of adequate fund to acquire computers, to subscribe to e- books databases, epileptic power supply, bad internet network connectivity and poor funding of the existing university libraries. The poor maintenance of the existing physical infrastructure amongst other are discussed. It is concluded that the university libraries compliment and in fact promote social reading in the age of electronic books, university libraries' stakeholders should ensure that hardware and software resources as well as the human resources needed to have a world-class university library are put in place.