THE ROLES OF PUBLIC LIBRARIANS IN INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER AMONG THE BINIS

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the study was to examine the roles of public librarians in indigenous knowledge transfer among the Binis. Four objectives and four research questions were formulated for the study. More so, the Parasunamel et al SERVQUAL theory also known as service quality model in 1985 for the dependent variable; while Nonaka’s SECI theory (1994) for the independent variable (indigenous knowledge transfer) were used to guide this study. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study while population of 50 public librarians (professional and paraprofessionals) in Edo state public library and National library in Nigeria, Benin City and 100 indigenes of Bini, out of which 130 was purposively selected from the public librarians and the Bini indigenes. A well-structured and validated questionnaire entitled: “roles of public librarians in indigenous knowledge transfer questionnaire (RPLIKTQ)” was used for data collection and data collected for this study were analyzed using absolute frequency counts and percentages. The findings of this study shows that documentation is moderately used by public librarians to transfer indigenous knowledge among the Binis; while folk media is used to a great extent by public librarians to transfer indigenous knowledge among the Binis. However, seminars and workshops are poorly used by public librarians to transfer indigenous knowledge among the Binis. It was therefore recommended that documentation should be used as a potent tool for transfer of indigenous knowledge through the provision of adequate facilities, training and manpower in public libraries; while seminars and workshops should be organized frequently with community representatives. In conclusion, the government, public librarians, community leaders and stakeholders should consider leveraging folk media as a potent tool with corresponding digital and archival tools that promote indigenous knowledge transfer.

Key words: Indigenous knowledge, public librarians, Binis, Indigenous knowledge transfer.