Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T01:28:40.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nigerian Names as Access Points

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Tsuzom M. Ndakotsu
Tsuzom M. Ndakotsu*
Affiliation:
Kahim Ibrahim Library, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria
Get access

Abstract

Nigerian societies treat many aspects of their cultures with reverence. Names and naming are just two of these. It is for this reason that Nigerian names deserve more than just a passing interest by cataloguers. Although long contact with the West has resulted in the adoption of family names, the issue of surnames, as a whole, is more complex. It is not in all Nigerian societies that surnames fit into the standard definition. For accurate identification and choice of names as access points, the cataloguer needs to have a deeper knowledge of the peculiarities that exist in various cultures. Cataloguing rules have made provision for a similar peculiarity in Asiatic names. It would be over simplistic to assume that Nigeria, or Africa for that matter, fits snugly into the Western mode.

The electronic library revolution is not the hurricane some feared it would be. It might have changed the face of the landscape, but some edifices with very strong foundations have survived and are still standing. One of such survivors is cataloguing - at least many aspects of it. Information Technology has changed traditional library chores; we cannot as yet burn our codebooks. I have yet to come across a library software that has completely done away with access points. I would rather think that digitization has actually created more of them. Even if some have been de-emphasised, the good old name entry appears still to stand on solid ground.

Type
Articles
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 101 , 2006 , pp. 43 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed., prepared by the American Library Association, the British Library, the Canadian Committee on Cataloguing, the Library Association, the Library of Congress; edited by Gorman, Michael and Winkler, Paul W., Chicago: ALA, 1978.Google Scholar
Bankole, Beatrice (1980) “Problems in establishing a name file for Nigerian authors” International Cataloguing, 9: 19-20, April-JuneGoogle Scholar
, Coker Increase (n.d.) Grammar of African names. Lagos: Daily TimesGoogle Scholar
Doi, Abdur Rahman I. (1978) Nigerian Muslim Names. Ahmodabad: Muslim Publishing House.Google Scholar