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The Nigerian Library Association (NLA) National Conference and Annual General Meeting (AGM) had as its theme, "Nigerian libraries for the future: progress, development and partnerships" when it met at Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, 9-14 September 2007. Over 400 delegates attended and they represented over 30 out of the 37 state chapters of the Association in Nigeria. Interestingly, Akwa Ibom State, the venue of the conference is also known as "the land of promise". The usual pre-conference seminar that forms part of the opening events was not readily available. Two of the nine papers billed for the conference were therefore taken to fill the gap. The first on the list of paper presentations was the one by L.O. Aina, University of Botswana, Botswana, titled "Appropriate curriculum for library and information science schools in Nigeria: the role of the Nigerian Library Association". He noted that Nigeria is the cradle of library and information science (LIS) training in West Africa. Specifically, librarianship training in Nigeria started at the Institute of Librarianship at the then University College Ibadan (now University of Ibadan) in 1959. At present, there are 18 universities offering LIS training both at undergraduate and graduate levels and four other universities are at the planning stage. The study revealed that universities have the academic freedom to design curricula that their trainees would offer in any discipline including LIS, but a professional association has the responsibility for prescribing guidelines on courses that it considers important for trainees in its profession to offer, to enable them function effectively in the immediate environment and beyond. Unfortunately, the professional body - Nigerian Library Association - has not played this role accordingly and one of the consequences was the accreditation of only five LIS schools in Nigeria by the National Universities Commission in 2006. Furthermore, the multidisciplinary courses required for non-traditional library jobs (for potential employers) are not included in the curriculum; the assurance that trainees in the profession would easily secure employment in the private or public sectors or in self-employment does not address these problems. A proposal was made for the inclusion of eight modules when designing a LIS curriculum for the bachelor of library and information science programme as follows: library and information science, information and communications technology (ICT),...