The Role of Library and Information Services in Achieving Sustainable Development: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

The library serves as the nucleus of development and is crucial to achieving sustainable development objectives. That assertion is so because the information is the fundamental component that can be processed to produce meaningful development. In essence, information is a driver of growth and the characteristic that sets the world's industrialized economy apart from its developing counterparts. Information has been recognized as the fifth factor of production because it has a significant impact on how individuals decide to combine the four traditional factors of production. The difference between the developed World and the Third World economies was based on the availability and use of information for projection purposes. Several world developmental projections that have failed can be traced to the amount of information made available to achieve the objectives that were to be realized. Therefore, the challenges that libraries and librarians face were discussed and the library's role as a valuable information hub equipped to achieve the goals of sustainable development.