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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 April 2022
Having four years ago reviewed C.C. Aguolu‘s Nigeria, a comprehensive bibliography in the humanities and social sciences 1900-1971, we could not resist the temptation, ‘where angels fear to tread’, to compare it with the recently published Nigerian contribution to humanistic studies by B. O. Aboyade, making it an excuse to cogitate on the place of the Humanities in the Nigerian university system.
To C. C. Aguolu the area of humane studies included both those which take the individual as the centre for investigation, i.e. the Arts, and those which are concerned with the group the Social Sciences: this seems all the more legitimate, as the latter derive from the former. For the Social Sciences have sprung and separated from the Arts within this century, as witnessed by the distinct faculties serving them.
1 Boston, G. K. Hall, 1973, iv, 620 pp. Dr. Aguolu is Ag. Head of Department of Library Studies, University of Maiduguri. Reviewed by C. M. B. Brann: a. Nigerian Libraries 10/2 (Aug/Dec 1974) 176-80; b. The Conch Review of Books 2/4 (Dec 1974) 240-3; c. Journal of Modern African Studies 13/1 (Mar 1975) 163-7; d. Journal of the Nigerian English Studies Association 6/2 (Dec 1974) 120-9
2 Ibadan, University of Ibadan, Department of Library Studies, 1978. xxxii, 156 pp. Dr. (Mrs.) Aboyade is Ag. Head, Department of Library Studies, University of Ibadan.
3 The famous adage of humanism of the Renaissance, later paraphrased by Alexander Pope as ‘The proper study of Mankind is Man’.
4 Mabogunje, A. L. ‘The Humanities and the Social Sciences’, in J. F. Ade Ajayi and T. N. Tamuno (eds) The University of Ibadan 1948-1974: a history of the first twentyfive years. Ibadan, Ibadan University Press, 1973, pp.168-190. “Thus, within fifteen years of the founding of the University College, institutional development within the humanities and the social sciences was spectacular. Out of the initial four departments“constituting the Faculty of Arts in 1948 there developed three faculties, fifteen departments and three institutes. Developments within the last ten years have shown very little new initiative.in the establishment of institutions “except for the reading centre (now Departments of Language Arts) and central language laboratory in 1967, and the evolution out of“the Institute of African Studies of a Department of Archaeology which for various technical reasons became part of the Faculty of Science” loc cit, p.174
5 The humanistic epigraph is that of E. M. Forster’s Passage to India.
6 Such a forum existed in the now extinct journal Ibadan, which can be compared with the Legon Journal of the Humanities. The latter started just as Ibadan was fading out, showing that in Legon, University of Ghana - founded like its sister university in 1948 - the traditional Europe-inspired functions of the Humanities are more strongly felt, than in the more rapidly industrialising Nigeria. Cf. also the article by C.C. Aguolu: ‘Information resources in Nigerian higher education: problems of development and growth’ Libri 28/1 (1978) 21-57.
7 Cf. the stupendous bibliography by Carole Travis (ed) Periodicals from Africa: a bibliography and union list of periodicals published in Africa, Boston, G. K. Hall. 1977. xvii, 619 pp.
8 Some departments of Nigerian universities issue.occasionally duplicated l i s t s of undergraduate research essays (‘Long Essays’ ‘Theses’ ‘Dissertations’). Occasional lists are published for A.B.U. in Savanna (eg Undergraduate Research Essays, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Ahmadu Bello University, June 1976. Savanna 5/2 (Dec 1976) 211-214, listing essays from the,Departments of Geography, History, Political Science and Sociology). Dr. J.- W. Lieber (ed) Human ecology and education: a catalogue of environmental studies, Occasional Publication no.10; Ibadan, Institute of Education, University of Ibadan, 1970, v, 46 pp, being alist of ‘Long Essays’ for the Certificate of Education.
9 ‘ Apart from the five university research libraries - the Africana Library (Ibadan), the Kashim Ibrahim Library, A.B.U., Zaria) and those at Lagos, Nsukka and Ife - each university has a library with a partly harmonised acquisition plan. In addition, important collections for the Humanities exist in the National Library, Lagos, The National Archives, Ibadan, the libraries of the National Museum at Lagos and Jos, the Arewa House Library on Nigerian History, Kaduna, etc. There i s so far no union catalogue of these, an undertaking much to be desired, as well as a working interuniversity loan and reprography scheme. Urgently needed i s also a reprography scheme for Nigerian theses, such as that enjoyed in Northern America through University Microfilm.
10 Ibadan, Ibadan University Press, 1975. xv, 231 pp.
11 Cf. the articles by N. J. Udoyeop, ‘The problems of publishing for a university press in Africa’ and by G. J. Williams, ‘Academic serial publishing in Africa: the experience of Savanna’ in E. Oluwasanmi, E. McLean and H. Zell.(eds) Publishing in Africa in the seventies. University of Ife Press, 1975. ix, 377 pp; respectively pp. 318-28 and 329-45.
12 W.O. Aiyepeku, Aspects of social science research in Ibadan. Paper presented at the staff seminar of the Department of Library Studies, University of Ibadan, Jan 30 1976; and The periodical literature component of Social Science research in Ibadan. Seminar ‘ paper presented in the Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Ibadan, April 29 1976.