Accra, June 3, GNA - Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, Minister of Education, on Thursday charged management of Ghana Library Board (GLB) to come out with ideas that would enhance service delivery in the context of modern trends and potential clientele expectations at schools, out of school, formal, non-formal and informal levels. He said their ability to deliver effectively would contribute immensely to the realisation of policy objectives in line with the strategic plan of GLB and the Ministry.

Mr Tettey-Enyo was addressing 30 regional, district, and mobile library officers at the opening session of a day's stakeholders' engagement and sensitisation workshop on library connectivity project in Accra. He said library and information services were expected to serve as meters to reflect the true picture of knowledge and information resources in the world at a particular point in time. Mr Tettey-Enyo, however, noted that most people currently acknowledged libraries as museums of archaic knowledge and were therefore not attractive to meet the desirable expectations, tastes and learning styles of the modern generation.

"The only way to solve this is to package the library and information service in a more attractive way such that it meets the expectations, tastes and learning styles of prospective clients," he said. Mr Tettey-Enyo pointed out that metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies supported by the GETFund should establish and fund basic school and community libraries and provide ICT facilities to facilitate distant learning and non-formal education. He called on authorities of the Department of Information Studies at University of Ghana to expand their training facilities to train librarians for public, community, school and college libraries. Mr Tettey-Enyo later presented three copies of Digital Science and Mathematics Online Portal for Junior and Senior High Schools, named 'skool dot com dot GH' to be loaded on computers in all libraries, to the management of GLB.

Mr Kofi Attor, Administrator, Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication (GIFEC) said libraries were essential for the development of any community, but in Ghana such facilities were scarce in most rural communities.

He said in view of this, management of GIFEC, in partnership with management of GLB had initiated the Library Connectivity Project (LCP) to provide mobile library services to all communities and districts in the country. Mr Attor said this would help revive, strengthen and improve the level of knowledge acquisition across the country. "All regional and district libraries under GLB would be provided with mobile vans, five computers each, tents, tables, chairs, modems, routers, and other accessories as well as books on ICT," he said. Mr Omari Tenkorang, Acting Deputy Executive Director of GLB, said the vision of the Board, was that no one should walk more than eight kilometres to access public library service, adding that the LCP would facilitate easy access to information by their clients. He said the LCP aimed at networking all public libraries for users to access information and materials online. "The LCP would afford communities, especially rural communities the opportunity to have access to static libraries and internet services," he said.

Mr Tenkorang assured management of GIFEC that management of GLB would live up to its responsibilities to ensure success of the project. He called on the Ministry of Education, management of GETFund and other corporate bodies to provide the requisite logistics to facilitate effective implementation of the project. 3 June 10