How 100,000 books turned to ashes in UniJos
Dust and ashes scattered on iron shelves are what remain of volumes of books, encyclopaedia, manuscripts, journals and other periodicals that once adorned the dozens of book shelves at the library complex of Naraguta campus, the permanent site of University of Jos.
The thousands of intellectual materials, computer laboratory, staff, PG and undergraduate students working spaces and other materials that make up the library are now no more, lost to a blazing inferno that ravaged the library building last Saturday evening, leaving in its place, books residue as well as darkened shells of printers, computer UPS, cabinets, lockers as well as curled and mortified looking iron book shelves.
The sight of nails, iron rods and chunks of what looks like a broken wall gives an idea of the intensity of heat generated by the incident. Window burglary proofs are plunged out of their sockets and the once cemented and painted walls now cracked and broken to pieces, exposing the structure’s naked burnt bricks.
Standing inside the library which once housed the entire collection of the faculties of Arts, Social Science, Environmental Science, Management Science, Education and part of Natural Sciences brings a nostalgic feeling to many who visited the library in its heydays.
The inferno also consumed all materials of the departments of Sociology, Psychology, Political Science, Economics, Accounting and Business Administration in the faculties of Social and Management sciences as well as some offices of lecturers from the faculty of Arts. The fire also did not spare the office of the Dean of faculty of Social Science as well as result sheets and yet to be marked exam scripts of undergraduate students.
The towering building which once welcomed many to the permanent site of the institution is now a ghost of its self. The complex has been cordoned off to staff and students based on cracks observed on the upper floors while the university, according to the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Seddi Sebastian Maimako, will carry out an integrity test to ascertain whether it will be safe to continue to use the building or not.
The initial design of the building known as the Library complex which is also the first academic structure at the permanent site was made to accommodate the university Library, but this changed after the university felt the need to find space for the faculties of Arts and Social Science. The University of Jos Director of Physical Facilities, Arch. Halima Auta, said the top layer of the building was initially designed for the administration of the library while the ground floor was to accommodate the bindery and other facilities that will support the library.
“The middle part was to be the library and being a framed structure with columns and waffled floors, the structure was designed to take aluminium partitioning and not what it was finally converted to which was the wooden partitions,” he said.
Work on the Library complex started as a capital project in 1982 and by 1986, it was halted due to lack of funds. Arch. Auta said by 1995, work resumed after the then university administration saw the need for space to accommodate the faculties of Arts and Social Sciences. This led to their movement from the Bauchi road main campus to the university’s permanent site at Naraguta.
Daily Trust on Sunday gathered that the proposed Library building had to be converted to accommodate all the departments under the two faculties as well as offices and lecture halls using wooden partitioning before it was commissioned in 1997. Though the faculty of Arts had moved to a newly constructed building almost two years ago, its entire book collection and those of other faculties situated at the Naraguta campus had been affected by the fire.
A document made available to our correspondent from the university library at the Bauchi road main campus shows that collections of academic materials of 15 departments in the faculty of Arts, seven departments in the faculty of Education, seven departments in the faculty of Environmental Science, six departments from the faculty of Management Science, four departments from the faculty of Social Science, as well as Geology department from the faculty of Natural science were completely destroyed in the inferno. Other materials destroyed include 32 desktop computers, giant photocopying machines, printers and other equipment that were in the computer laboratory situated within the library as well as 68 stacks of double sided metal shelves.
The university’s Librarian, Dr. Stephen Akintunde, said the exact number of intellectual materials lost were still being collated but stressed that about 100,000 volumes have been lost including rear materials that may not be available now.
Dr. Akintunde said: “We lost books, journals, magazines, newspapers; current and back sets some of which date back to 1800, because some of the collections we had in that building came from the University of Ibadan. Being a former campus of the University of Ibadan in 1971, the first set of books was in the Arts, so we had classical text books, philosophies so many reference materials and French classical books and the back sets of World Bank statistics, journals and newspapers.”
“Some of the back set of academic journals that date back to the 1880 early 1920 are quite unquantifiable so at this point it will be very difficult, especially with the forex rate now to attach a monetary value. It will still take us some time to give an average cost of a book; encyclopaedia for instance are in $100’s of dollars and we had several types so we are taking stock of that with our catalogue back up,” he said.
But there is hope in what seems to be a devastating incident for the university and students. The students and staff may lose touch of having direct access to the books lost, but
the university has a huge back-up of digital resources in terms of books and journals which are found in the institutional repository arranged according to different disciplines, it was gathered.
Some of the students at the Naraguta campus have already relocated to the Main campus library where they can have easy internet access and comfortable space for reading and research.
Dr. Akintunde said: “We have back-up and alternatives and I think that is a major outlet for us in this particular situation. Had it been we didn’t have that it would have been a big mess. We may not be able to get some of the critical ones, especially those published by African authors which are not in the world stage digitally, but at least there is something students and staff can still use for academic research and learning.”
This is however not the first time the university has suffered a fire outbreak, in 2013, the library at the Bauchi road campus was gutted by fire and a few months after, the data centre of the ICT complex was equally gutted by fire. Members of the University of Jos Advancement Support Board, a 10 member committee that voluntarily give support to the advancement of the university, while visiting the library complex expressed sadness on the incident stressing that “this is a time we need people to rally around, this is one of the foremost universities and what is a university without a library?
The group headed by the Bishop of Jos Anglican Church, Bishop Benjamin Kwashi, added, “we expect people to rally around the institution to ensure that the library comes alive, in fact better than it used to.”
Other members of the committee which include General Joshua Dogon Yaro, the Emir of Kanam, Alh. Babangida Muázu, Mrs Judith Ogedemgbe, Mrs Loko Dangim, Chief Adagazi, Eng. Esther Gwonda and others advised the university to begin to look at how it can have huge tanks of water situated close to the libraries to forestall future occurrences.
With such colossal loss, many fear that the first academic building which stands tall as a pride of the institution, attracting many to the permanent site may suffer demolition. But Arch. Auta stated that “we are very optimistic that the structure will not be adversely affected by the inferno because the design of the structure is capable of withstanding structural challenges. The burnt brick elements are to withstand fire up to a certain degree Celsius and we have the feeling that what we experienced couldn’t measure to what the bricks were subjected to before they were brought to site for the construction.”
She said though only the external framed structure of the building was made from the burnt bricks, the columns and waffled floors add strength to the concrete, “it is not just an ordinary flat concrete floor. The fact that the spaces in between the waffled floor add strength to the floor, is why we are optimistic, however, a committee has been put in place to scientifically access the structure beyond just looking at it physically.”