Ghana lacks information - Ghana Library Association

Accra, May 4, GNA - Although the world is in the information and knowledge age, there is information shortage in Ghana, Mrs Valentina J.A. Bannerman, President of the Ghana Library Association, said on Friday.

She noted that though there was an influx of information on the Internet most Ghanaians lacked the skills to access it effectively, adding that some specifics relating to Ghana would not be found because it had not been put there.

She said most government Ministries, Department and Agencies were unable to document and organise information related to their organisations in order to help researchers, students, educators and the entire society to advance.

"It is only when people are adequately informed that they can make the right decisions," Mrs. Bannerman said when she presented her presidential inaugural lecture on the topic: "The Critical Role of Libraries in the Information Society".

She said: "The challenge is to have improved access to essential information and knowledge at all intellectual and production levels of society without which no nation can meet any of the internationally-agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals."

Mrs. Bannerman called for the stringent enforcement of the copyright and intellectual property laws, saying; "If authors are not protected, they will not be motivated to create more works and there would be a dearth of knowledge for national development." She said in Ghana the rewarding system was not well developed for intellectual rights and therefore authors did not normally make much money out of their creative and intellectual efforts. She therefore called for the enforcement of Copy Ghana levy, which was aimed at ensuring that authors had some token fees from university students' annual for use of intellectual materials though photocopying though the copyrights had been contravened.

Mrs. Bannerman admitted that some of the difficulties in accessing information were largely due to the fact that information was buried deep as a result of the manual system in processing information.

"Access to information will be enhanced if libraries are automated. When the public domain is enriched with digitized information, when all MDAs fulfil their obligation to publish the information they generate, when all libraries are automated to complement what the Internet provides, it will contribute to the influx of information on the Internet where all citizens go to acquire information." Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, Vice Chancellor, University of Education, Winneba, who chaired the function, said he wondered what would be the use of libraries in the next 50 years if all information were made available on the Internet.

He appealed to the MDAs to try to document every aspect of their activities to make information available to those who needed it.