The Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, yesterday said 6466 librarians have been licensed to practise in the country.

The minister disclosed this at the opening of the Librarians’ Registration Council of Nigeria’s (LRCN) sixth conference and 10th induction where 637 others were inducted in Abuja.

Adamu expressed delight that the council had trained thousands of professionals in different capacity development programmes and developed benchmarks and standards for different categories of libraries.

He said: “It is worthy to note that librarianship plays key roles in service delivery in the education sector and no meaningful development can take place in the sector without the libraries.

“The large number of inductees present here today to take oath as professional librarians is a clear indication that the council is gradually and steadily delivering on its mandate.”

Registrar of the council, Prof. Micheal Afolabi, said his organisation recently focused on capacity building and training workshops for members.

He encouraged graduates of Library and Information Science (LIS) to apply for the LRCN certificate, noting that most organisations have focused in implementing the council’s policy on recruitment and promotion of only qualified librarians.