Developing and implementing entrepreneurship curriculum in Nigerian library and information science programmes

摘要

This paper proposes a theoretical approach to the development and implementation of an entrepreneurship curriculum in LIS.? It observes that the introduction of entrepreneurship education in Nigerian universities following a Presidential directive in 2004 was a laudable step even as facilities for skills acquisition are generally lacking in most institutions. Following the laudable intentions of the general studies entrepreneurship course, stakeholders in LIS have also seen a need for tailor-fit entrepreneurship studies in the field, which led recently to the proposal for a course known as Infopreneurship to be included in undergraduate LIS education. To train LIS students in entrepreneurship requires the development of a comprehensive but dynamic curriculum that responds to changing needs in the field. The implementation of this curriculum will enable beneficiaries to be self-employed by carrying out such entrepreneurial activities like abstracting, indexing, publishing, database development and management, collection management, knowledge management, organization of knowledge, current awareness services, staff recruitment and development, conduct of researches, bibliographic and metadata searching, journals and book business, materials conservation and preservation, generation of ideas, etc.? The implementation of the curriculum requires students to have the right mindset for entrepreneurial skills acquisition; LIS programmes need to have qualified and experienced staff to teach the course(s); need to have facilities for students to acquire hands-on experience both in their departments and places of IT and SIWES; need to create and promote entrepreneurship awareness, knowledge of how to access existing markets, funding, etc is also required by students.? It is recommended finally that to make entrepreneurship attractive, government ought to create favourable environment in terms of infrastructure provision, funding and regulating interest rates on bank loans, etc.