Popularising e-Libraries in Africa

Lazarus Sauti

E-libraries (library resources that are available online through computers and databases) are crucial in Africa’s socio-economic development since they provide wide access to information and knowledge.

Although they are important institutions that can drive the development of the African continent, it is sad to note that most countries across the continent are falling behind in building and popularising them.

This is a cause for concern.

Therefore, to effectively build, popularise and benefit from e-libraries, countries across the African continent should make frantic efforts to make them (e-libraries) most acceptable to the public.

Collence Chisita, a Harare based researcher, believes that e-libraries play a great role in the fulfillment of dignified goals that contribute towards human development.

He says: “Across Africa, information on a variety of issues is needed to help government and the general citizenry to address daily challenges and improve their lives. E-libraries respond to this gap by allowing individuals to quickly and easily collect, organise, present and disseminate information relevant to their needs.”

E-Libraries are better than conventional libraries in that they provide powerful search capabilities, including the ability to search the text of recent, scanned documents using optical character recognition; desk-top access to electronic filings and issuances, scanned documents, and large format maps.

Ultimately, e-libraries can be successful tools for achieving the transformation agenda of the African continent and they should be promoted and popularised as effective ingredients in the development equation of the continent.

Three pillars of sustainable progress: innovation, research and development can also benefit immensely if Africa embraces and popularises e-libraries. Frankly, innovation, research and technological advancement are critical means through which African businesses can experience future growth developing new products or processes to improve and expand their operations.

Knowledge and Information expert, Jelous Joseph says the continent should popularise e-libraries to facilitate timely access to information.

“Africa should popularise e-libraries to facilitate permanent access to and resource discovery of selected digital resources.

“Making educational resources and related information timely and freely available will benefit African students, researchers, intellectuals and think tanks – and in the process fast-track the continent’s development,” he said.

Joseph also says African countries should prioritise the training of library and information practitioners if the continent is to successfully popularise e-libraries.

“It is the responsibility of African governments and players in the information sector to train professional librarians on e-libraries. “The training should enhance the promotion of professional excellence, access to information and quality service delivery.

“At the same time, library and information practitioners should sensitise and equip library and information users with basic skills for deployment of e-Libraries as tools for realising the transformation agenda of the African continent.”

Since development requires a multisectoral and holistic approach to be successful, think tanks in Africa should partner universities and related research institutions in establishing e-libraries.

Partnering other countries who successfully managed e-libraries is also a wise way to go for Africa. For example, the United States is said to have successfully managed an e-library which has a lot of information in different areas and is free.

So, Africa must cooperate with the United States and other developed nations to effectively benefit from how to make the most of e-libraries.

Honestly, what we have in the library and information sector in Africa currently is mostly the traditional library. Therefore, political leaders in the continent should complement the traditional library with electronic library so that researchers in Africa can have access to electronic resources.

Chisita said: “Researchers can access research information real time as their colleagues in other parts of the world. We will also talk about e-library content management. If you look on the internet, you find that there is paucity of information on Africa so we should try to re-skill librarians, documentalists, archivists, information managers and officers on how they can actually upload local (African) content on websites.”

For the continent to develop and compete globally, research information conducted in countries within and across Africa needs to be given more international exposure.

More so, library policy makers should look at issues around open source software so that libraries in public institutions that are unable to buy proprietary software will know that they have option.

It is critical to note that an effective e-library is crucial for building a national knowledge system and an efficient knowledge economy. Therefore, sustainable, knowledge-based development strategies must be based on electronic libraries.

Since e-libraries are the lifeblood for developing the continent, African states must embrace, support and popularise them.