Ghana needs e-library facilities – Tema Librarian

Mr Winfred Monu, Tema Metropolitan Librarian on Wednesday called on stakeholders in education to help the 53 public libraries in the country to acquire the needed logistics for the implementation of e-libraries.

Mr Monu, who made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the benefits of e-libraries are enormous.

He said it is about time Ghana gets e-library facilities, to allow the public libraries to acquire latest editions of reference books and magazines.

This, he said would cut down on the cost of acquiring books by the Ghana Library Authority (GLA).

Mr Monu said e-library would also be beneficial to on-line students, since all the information they need for research would be available, making it less time-consuming.

He expressed regret that even though, some of the librarians of the GLA have received e-library training in India and the United Kingdom, the facilities are not available to also train their colleagues.

Mr Monu said he solicited funds from some companies in the metropolis to put up a 30-seater internet café to encourage students to learn how to extract information from the World Wide Web.

He said his outfit is planning to educate Information Communication Technology (ICT) teachers in the metropolis.

Mr Monu said the facility would also be made available to schools that lack the needed equipment for their ICT training.

He, therefore, appealed to philanthropists and other public-spirited organisations to provide more computers and internet connectivity devices to the metropolitan Library to make the dream a reality.

Mr Monu indicated that in 2011, the library recorded 2,020 juvenile membership, made up of 500 for the first quarter, 620, 550 for the second, 350 for the second, third and fourth quarters respectively.

The adult membership also came to 1,577, comprising 457 in the first quarter, 320 in the second quarter, 350 for the third quarter and 450 for the fourth quarter.

He said the book stock for the library as at July 2011 were, 7,094 juvenile lending and 360 reference books.

The library also had 5,002 adults lending and 819 adult reference books during the same period under review.

He said the greatest challenge of his outfit is the lack of fence wall, which has opened the premises to the nefarious activities of hooligans, while stray animals also disturb clients who patronise the library.**