Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
Fall 10-2-2021
Abstract
ABSTRACT
The study examined infopreneurship skills for sustainable development in Nigeria, with a focus on Library and Information Science (LIS) students of selected federal universities in Nigeria. The study was guided by six objectives which were to identify the infopreneurship opportunities that LIS students in Nigeria can venture into, the motivational factors for venturing into infopreneurship, the skills required, ways of acquiring infopreneurship skills, challenges militating against infopreneurship skills development and strategies for enhancing the infopreneurship skills development of LIS students in Nigeria. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The study revealed that infopreneurship opportunities for LIS students in Nigeria include: indexing and abstracting services business; computer services business; sale of library equipment business and information consultancy services business, among others. The findings also showed that the motivational factors for infopreneurship skills development of LIS students include: a desire to become a boss of their own, become an employer of labour and a job creator, increased social status and prestige, personal financial gain and freedom, as well as high rate of unemployment in Nigeria, among others. It further revealed that the infopreneurship skills required by LIS students consist of financial management skills, ICT literacy skills, communication skills, marketing skills, interpersonal relationship skills and leadership skills, among others. The results equally revealed that LIS students acquire infopreneurship development skills through training from the entrepreneurship directorates of their universities, seminars, formal classroom learning, reading books on business development and growth and also personal apprenticeship training, among others. The findings revealed the challenges militating against infopreneurship development of LIS students in Nigeria, the strategies for enhancing the infopreneurial skills development and also recommended the way forward. The study concluded that the acquisition of infopreneurship skills is a key to sustainable development as it galvanizes sustainable employment opportunities for LIS students and graduates while engendering socio-economic balance for an improved standard of living and promoting LIS students and graduates positive contributions to a national and global economic renaissance. Thus, training for LIS students’ infopreneurship skills development should be given priority attention by all LIS schools through the provision of necessary facilities and enabling learning environment.