The National Library of Nigeria has decentralized its cataloguing operations to enhance efficiency and save cost. Going forward, state branches of the organization are to henceforth catalogue new acquisitions emanating through them especially as legal deposit collections, or gift donations on the Online Open Access Catalogue. It is to this end that the Collections Development and Technical Services Department organized Cataloguing and Classification Workshop for branches within the North central Zone, from Tuesday 01^st to Thursday 03^rd August, 2023 at the NLN headquarters, Abuja.

Declaring the workshop open, the National Librarian, Prof. Chinwe Anunobi said the workshop was organized to the participants with necessary and contemporary skills and competence, required to achieve the purpose of the decentralization. She further stated that it is expected at the end of the workshop that resources deposited at the branches are no longer sent unprocessed to the headquarters but duly processed at the grassroots before sending to the Headquarters.

This, according to her, will ensure equitable distribution, knowing from which state each material came from. She therefor encouraged the participants to learn, go home and apply what they have learnt for smooth operations of library services, said the National Librarian/CEO

Earlier, the Director of Collections Development and Technical Services Department, Mrs Anthonia Onuoha in a welcome address informed the trainees that their participation is an opportunity for practical exposure on cataloguing and classification beyond the knowledge and skills they might have acquired in school. She emphasized that cataloguing is the heart and soul of libraries and is also the bridge between the users' information needs and the collections. She further stated that the workshop is designed to equip them with skills covering the creation and storage of bibliographic data.