elijah.azeez@nln.gov.ng
A report card written in numbers — because at the National Library, the story tells itself.
In 2021, Prof. Chinwe Veronica Anunobi walked into an institution built to preserve Nigeria's memory. Five years on, the results have spoken loudly enough that President Bola Tinubu has renewed her tenure as National Librarian, a vote of confidence in work that has, in half a decade, turned a quiet repository into a living, growing network. Between 2022 and 2025, the National Library of Nigeria registered 274,353 users, recorded 624,119 branch visits, and saw 610,462 resources consulted by the public. It issued 74,134 ISBNs, received 28,002 legal deposit titles, catalogued 132,694 volumes, grew its workforce to 648 staff, launched 11 digital platforms, and digitized 167,505 pages of rare material. Those are the headlines. Here is how they happened and why the work continues.
Getting Nigerians Back Through the Door
A library is only as alive as the people walking into it, and the growth here wasn't a flash in the pan. Registrations climbed from 42,977 in 2022 to 109,308 in 2025, a 168% increase, while footprints across the branches totalled 624,119 for the period. More tellingly, the resources people actually came in to use rose from 89,528 a year to 253,728, nearly tripling. Geographically, the North Central zone led the way with 66,736 registrations (27.9% of the total), powered heavily by the FCT, while the South West followed with 49,125 (20.6%). But the real story is the North East: starting from the smallest base of any zone, it grew 4.6 times over the five years, making it the fastest-growing region in the country even as it remained the smallest in absolute terms. At branch level, the FCT (46,872), Lagos (29,683), Enugu (26,543) and Kaduna (26,143) together carried over half the nation's registrations, while branches in Yobe, Niger, Abia and Imo lagged behind, a reminder that three states, Anambra, Delta and Kebbi, still have no NLN branch at all, though Zamfara finally got one in 2025.
Beyond the buildings, the library took reading to the people. Between 2022 and 2024, its Readership Promotion Campaigns reached 7,309 participants, 4,920 students and 2,389 teachers and community leaders, and helped establish more than 99 literacy centres reaching 104 hard-to-reach communities, alongside over 120 reading and book clubs nationwide.
The Quiet Engine Room
Behind the public-facing numbers sits the unglamorous work that makes a national library genuinely national. Technical services catalogued and classified 132,694 volumes, lettered 108,078, encoded 28,581 into the KOHA system, and revised 15,526, while also contributing 1,241 entries each to Wikidata and Wikibase, a small but symbolic step into the global open-knowledge ecosystem. Legal deposit, the nation's paper trail, brought in 28,002 titles and 158,980 volumes over the period, with 22,718 titles processed out to branches and 714 e-legal deposits captured through NLN and Boldscholar; 2025 alone delivered 10,459 titles and 55,902 volumes, nearly double any prior year. On the publishing-support side, ISBN issuance reached 74,134 cumulatively, growing 65.5% over five years, while engagement with publishers and authors rose 105.8%, from 5,514 people served annually to 11,348. A stubborn backlog of 33,000 unprocessed records was finally cleared in 2025. ISSN issuance told a similar story of recovery and growth: 3,072 issued in total (2,008 print, 1,064 electronic), up 41%, with 4,973 title verifications completed along the way.
That ISSN work hasn't gone unnoticed beyond Nigeria's borders, either. Prof. Anunobi was elected to the Governing Board of the ISSN International Centre, placing Nigeria at the same table as the global body that coordinates serial publication standards worldwide, a rare seat for an African national library, and a direct reflection of the standards-building work happening quietly at home. She has also been positioned to lead a Global Indigenous Language Initiative, extending the library's local work on Nigerian languages onto an international stage. Taken together, these appointments mark a shift: the National Library of Nigeria is no longer just implementing global standards; it's helping to shape them.
Going Digital, On Purpose
If one theme defines this tenure, it is that the National Library stopped being only a building and became a network. Eleven digital platforms went live: the National Virtual Library of Nigeria, the National Repository of Nigeria, a redesigned NLN website, an upgraded KOHA and OPAC system, the Index to Nigeria Newspapers app, an ISBN Verification Portal, a combined ISBN/ISSN Portal, and the Nigerbiblios Journal Platform, all in 2023, followed by a Newspaper/Magazine Locator and a Legal Deposit Application in 2025, alongside a FAHR portal for finance, accounts and HR launched back in 2022. The results are tangible: 2,454 items now live in the National Repository, 23 open-access journals hosted, 5,512 e-resources harvested with 1,152 new arrivals catalogued, and over 432 monograph links established. Most striking of all, 167,505 pages of rare and fragile material were digitized, history quite literally saved from decay. Free internet access was also extended to branches in Jos, Enugu, Kaduna, Lagos and Sokoto. Online, the conversation grew in step: 25,903 followers on Facebook from 679 posts, 3,421 on X, 1,234 on Instagram, 1,653 on LinkedIn, 177 subscribers on YouTube, and a blog that pulled in 48,168 views across 146 posts.
Documenting a Nation's Knowledge
The library didn't just collect Nigeria's story, it kept writing it down. Newspaper indexing and abstracting produced 1,862 index records and 2,198 abstracted articles between 2021 and 2025, up from a pre-2021 baseline of roughly 50 entries a year, with another 740 fully processed and awaiting upload. Nigerbiblios, the library's peer-reviewed journal, published Volumes 32 through 35, while its Index & Abstract series captured major national moments including President Tinubu's first 100 days and first year in office, and Senator Oluremi Tinubu's Renewed Hope Initiative. Three NLN Annual Reports were published across 2022, 2023 and 2024, and 77,622 volumes of newspapers were purchased for the archive. Altogether, the national bibliography grew from 5,242,791 titles and 13,973,369 volumes in 2022 to roughly 5,265,591 titles and 14,107,098 volumes today. On the communications front, the library put out 22 editions of its official news bulletin, 12 episodes of the National Librarian's Book Review videocast, and 71 stories on its website, while also compiling and publishing a Map of Nigerian Languages and a compendium of indigenous alphabets and numerals.
Bricks, Power and Presence
Digitization means little without a roof to house it under, and physical infrastructure got real attention too. Four state branches were renovated, Kwara, Sokoto, Niger and Cross River in 2022, followed by Jigawa and Kogi in 2024, while perimeter fencing went up at the Akwa-Ibom (2023) and Jigawa (2024) permanent sites, alternative power was installed at FCT and Lagos (2023) and later at NLN Headquarters, Osun and Enugu (2024), and new student accommodation was built at CALIM in 2024. Seven prototype branch buildings have been under construction since 2021, with genuine progress to show: Osogbo and Yenagoa now sit at 95% completion and are already occupied, while Jalingo has reached 85%, Ibadan 70%, Calabar 68%, Ilorin 25% and Abeokuta 17%. Procurement kept pace, with 84 laptops, 31 desktops, 30 tablets, 4 vehicles and 3,849 pieces of furniture and equipment acquired between 2022 and 2024.
The People Behind the Numbers
None of this happens without a workforce, and the library invested in its own. Staff numbers grew to 648 by 2026, with 198 new recruits brought in between 2023 and 2025. The institution awarded 453 promotions across the period, 152 in 2022, 86 in 2023, 98 in 2024 and 114 in 2025, granted 86 study leaves, and approved 49 staff conversions or upgrades. Training reached 212 staff across programmes spanning NLA conferences, procurement, cataloguing and classification, and various professional bodies. A staff welfare scheme launched in 2023 supported the families of deceased staff with a combined ₦35.16 million in benefits over three years, and leadership stayed connected through 30 management meetings, 85 briefings and 7 retreats. On the finances, capital budget appropriation over the five years totalled ₦6.57 billion, with ₦5.22 billion released and ₦4.98 billion utilized, a track record worth noting for an institution operating on public funds.
A Renewed Mandate, and What Comes Next
Rather than closing a chapter, this five-year record has opened another. With her tenure renewed, Prof. Anunobi carries forward five clear priorities: deepening digital transformation so branch operations, registrations and user statistics can be monitored in real time; expanding cultural preservation through further digitization of rare materials and regular exhibitions of national memory; turning branches into genuine hubs for literacy and lifelong learning; securing more consistent funding and sharper resource use for long-term sustainability; and building staff capacity for a modern, data-driven library service.
Five years ago, the National Library of Nigeria was a repository. Today, it is a network, of branches, portals, digitized pages, trained staff, a bibliographic record growing by tens of thousands of items a year, and now a genuine seat at the global table through the ISSN International Centre and indigenous language initiatives. The numbers above are not just a scorecard. With a renewed mandate in hand, they ae the opening chapter of the next five years.