📍 Beatrice Aboyade Foremost Professor of Library and Information Studies Dies at 87

Professor Beatrice Olabimpe Aboyade, former Head of the Library, Archival & Information Studies Department at the University of Ibadan and the first woman in sub-Saharan Africa to obtain a Ph.D. in #English Literature,  passed on March 3 at the age of 87 will be buried on March 31. 

Professor Olabimpe Aboyade became a Professor of #LibraryStudies in 1978 and served as the Head, of the Department of Library, Archival & Information Studies Department 3 times (1977-1979, 1980–1983, & 1985-1988.)  She retired from the service of the University of Ibadan in 1990.

She attended Queen's College in Lagos and Queen's School in Ede before being accepted in 1955 to the University College in Lagos, which was then a college affiliated with the University of London. As a result of her outstanding academic standing, she was made a College Scholar there and earned her BA in English with honors in 1960.

Aboyade was the second Nigerian to lead the University of Ibadan's Department of Library, Archival, and Information Studies. She took over as Department Head from Prof. Adetowun Ogunsheye in 1977–1979, and was reappointed in 1980–1983 and 1985–1988, a three-time record at the university.

The Department of Library, Archival, and Information Studies (LARIS) was established during her leadership, expanding from the Department of Library Studies to include professional archivists and information scientists in addition to librarians for the first time in Nigeria.

Aboyade served as the chairman of the Development Policy Centre in Ibadan, an international think tank and research center for developing people's capacity to formulate development policies and programs, until her death.

Her late husband, Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, a well-known economist, helped build the center with the help of the World Bank.

👉 https://twitter.com/DrAlongeAJ/status/1640758306040938519?s=20