Professional Training and Staff Development of the University for Development Studies

The study investigates staff development issues at the University for Development Studies library in terms of staff development policy, training needs of the library staff, budgetary allocation for staff development and staff motivation. The study used the survey method and distributed questionnaires to fifty-three (53) staff members of the library. The main findings of the study revealed that, majority of the senior staff had, at least, basic library qualifications; majority of the staff were not aware of the staff development policy being implemented by the library; the library had access to resources in the form of equipment, expertise and funds for staff training and development; and majority of the staff needed additional training on cataloguing and classification, Information Communication Technology (ICT), management, and scholarly publishing. The study recommends among others that change in courses considered relevant to librarianship. There is also the need to train staff to acquire the skills needed to use databases because the nature and content of library and information services are changing very fast.