Lecturer, Dept of Languages and Linguistics, College of Humanities and Culture Ikire campus, Nigeria
Abstract
The past few decades in Nigeria have witnessed a continuous yearning for literacy at all levels of the society, as well as in all disciplines and professions with the aim of enhancing competence and performance. Since the period, this yearning has generated different forms of literacy such as financial literacy, media literacy and literary literacy while the attention, in this paper, is on literary literacy in relation to the reading culture and library services in Nigeria. Literary literacy, as conceptualized in this paper, is all encompassing and inclusive of the parents, the curriculum developers, the government and all the strata of Nigerian society because the concept is seen beyond the reading, interpretation and analysis of literary texts. Among the problems confronting literary literacy, as identified in this paper, are non-availability and non-affordability of quality books, poor library services in the countrys educational institutions at all levels, examination malpractices and gross misconducts/corruption in the countrys educational sector. When all these problems are addressed with a strong political will, there will an improvement in the literary literacy of the country. The paper, therefore, argues that the literary literacy in the country can be improved upon if the stakeholders form positive attitude towards reading in this era of media imperialism by social media and digital communication. The paper concludes that the efficiency and effectiveness of literary literacy in Nigeria depend on an improved reading culture and qualitative library services at all levels of the countrys institutions of learning.
Keywords: Literacy, Reading, Literary Literacy, National Development, Nigeria
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