Abstract

Nigerian law libraries, despite the intervention of Council of Legal education, are still not endowed with every resource needed to satisfy information needs of diverse users. This is coupled with the fact that Nigerian universities are still struggling to manage insufficient funds normally received from government. Resource sharing as a means through which organisations interchange and share their meagre resources for the good of many is supposed to be a way out for Nigerian law libraries who would have to prepare their students and members of legal profession for their law program, mock and moot trials, clinical legal education or other practical education. However, it has not been documented that there is an organised resource sharing practise carried out in Nigeria among law libraries. The study investigated the practicality of resource sharing among academic law libraries bearing in mind the immense benefit it provides to education and learning. Survey research design was adopted for the study. The population consisted of 19 law librarians from Universities that attended 2017 law librarians’ conference in Nigerian Law School Abuja. Questionnaire was used to collect data. Due to the small population of law librarians, all the population was used for the survey; only 14 questionnaires were returned.  Mean and standard deviation were used with a likert point scale to determine positive (2.50 and above) and negative (2.49 and below). Research questions were analysed using frequency count, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The results revealed that there was no formal practice of resource sharing among the participating law libraries. Law librarians informally share their knowledge on personal basis with their colleagues. Law libraries are supported financially by University Libraries and other organisations; and law librarians that participated understand resource sharing despite the fact that it is not practised by their libraries. There is also no written policy on resource sharing among the libraries that participated in the survey. The study concluded that there is no application of resource sharing among academic law libraries in Nigeria. The study recommended that Council of Legal Education as the overseeing body in legal education should initiate resource sharing practice among academic law libraries as this would provide ease of access to vast academic resource and ensure constant skills development among law librarians in Nigeria.

Key words: Resource sharing, law libraries, collaboration, communities of practice, legal education.