INTRODUCTION
Due to the fact their inception, libraries have maintained their sovereignty as the main storage of information in society. Now, novel details technologies equipped with the pc, telecommunications and optical media are severely impacting libraries. ICTS, for short, is applied listed here to include computer components, computer software and telecommunication gear. It has been an indispensable software and has great affect globally. Of all the diversified technologies of our time, development in details and communication technological innovation has no doubt experienced, and carries on to have substantial influence on the global financial system. It tends to make it possible to acquire, method and transmit information and facts at amazing pace and declining price tag. It boosts efficiency, enhances high quality and performance in all types of products and services.
The impression is found in diverse places this sort of as health-treatment, finance and banking, transportation, publishing and management. Data know-how is presently modifying our lives in various ways. It facilitates interaction irrespective of distance, relieves a person of a excellent deal of tough, filthy and repetitive get the job done and offers manage about the purely natural natural environment. As Knopp (1984) realistically noticed, the library is presently standing on a crossroad and have to attempt to obtain a beneficial balance involving the traditional library functions and approaches, and the new difficulties. The African university librarian will pay a greatly substantial value in preserving conventional products and services and embracing the technological advances. This notwithstanding, it have to be paid out if the African librarian wishes to interpose or keep on being the mediator amongst the person and data. It is the librarian’s function to guarantee that the ensuing use of computer systems and telecommunication and any other ideal technological know-how contributes in expense helpful methods to the requires of scholarship and research considering the fact that “he librarians have the knowledge in attaining supplies in a wide range of formats and make them available for a wide range of functions” (Simpson, 1984, p.38).
THE AFRICAN College LIBRARIAN
Two programmes of the Global Federation of Library Associations and Establishments (IFLA), the Common Bibliographic Control (UBC) and the Common Availability of Publications (UAP), have contributed immensely to a large and uncomplicated entry to print facts. Something comparable can be carried out to deliver the similar access to electronic information and facts. African college librarians could take the legacy of the aforementioned programmes and tranpose them into a new vision for an electronic foreseeable future.
At the second meeting of the Advert Hoc Committee on University Libraries held in Accra in 1999, the have to have to give priority to the improvement and the challenges of obtain to the new information and facts systems have been stressed. It was emphasized that college administration buildings will have to admit the centrality of the library as a pedagogic software (AAU, 199). Continuing education and learning programmes for African libraries to facilitate reskilling, which fulfills the dynamic info atmosphere, have to be supported since there should be a focus in teaching for technological know-how no matter of the space of librarianship a person specializes in. It is a truism that “librarians require to know how to obtain and filter what is on the internet” (Rosenberg, 2000, p.15).
IMPLICATIONS OF Information and facts Systems
A school of assumed forcefully argues that the strengths of facts technologies are double-edged. Technological innovation far too appears to have greater fairly than reduced the woes of African university libraries in the provision of information and facts. Unique equipment is essential to access and to retrieve details that arrives in electronic structure. There are problems of storage and conservation even when the products is offered. Engineering can only be mounted and utilized if sufficient and sound funding supports it. It is incontrovertible that the most vital variable truly worth investigating severely is the financial aspect of the situation. In Sierra Leone, the university administration in the beginning centrally budgeted about six p.c for its college or university and institute libraries. Central funding even so has been changed by collegiate funding which is inadequate (Rosenberg, 1997). Management must admit and help the centrality of its academic nerve centre and make certain the sustainability of the library programmes and services.
The development of units for the firm of awareness and details retrieval has arrived at a plateau, with names of elementary method traits now sufficiently tried out and tested. Even so, information of the core principles, the use of inverted information to support in retrieval and the context in which a lot of techniques function will need constant revision. Scientists are pursuing a wide range of techniques in their lookup for improved programs, categorized into the following:
1. Procedure layout, where the standard aim is to improve the efficiency and efficiency of the system, together with storage and its retrieval velocity and
2. The human computer interface (human factor) in which the aim is to boost the quality of interaction between the person and the personal computer so that the former can be far more prosperous in extracting what they demand.
THE National Governing administration
Nationwide governments ought to give extra prominence to African university libraries in the space of provision of infrastructure and funding. It is a truism that the governing administration of Sierra Leone like other African governments is in search of ways and signifies to curtail the total of income used on tertiary education and learning (Duah, 1999). The New Academic Policy for Sierra Leone (1995) is dedicated, in theory, “to establish, equip, manage, preserve and build an economical library company in the funds, provisional cities and districts” (p.41). Until eventually these types of a plan is implemented, the library method would go Rip Van Wrinkle. Info is a element of creation. For that reason, the institutions that get, arrange, shop, maintain in a way that facilitates retrieval and offer it to likely users have earned federal government aid and consideration. The Ministry of Education in Ghana for instance introduced numerous initiatives to greatly enhance both computerization and entry to the internet for academic institutions. The Academic Management Information Process (EMIS) job was launched in Oct 1997 to supply online expert services/accessibility to educational administrators throughout the place.
Conclusion
In spite of the novel technological innovation, the mission of the library will remain unchanged nevertheless the ways in which librarians satisfy this mission improvements. African librarians ought to come across a quite helpful equilibrium involving the conventional/common library functions and the strategies of the new challenges in buy to keep their management function in the details age. The university library should look at working an automated program that will be accessible to students, lecturers and the normal community in get to aid teaching, learning, exploration and extension products and services of the university. This system can be labored as a result of collaborative attempts of all concerned.
Checklist OF REFERENCES
AAU Newsletter (1999). The role of the college libraries in Africa, 5(2), pp.1-12.
Duah, V. (1999). The AAU and larger training in the future millennium. AAU Newsletter, 5(2), pp.1-2.
Knopp, W. (1984). The library in a technological earth: challenges and queries put forward by the shopper. IFLA Journal, 10(1), pp.57-62.
New Instruction Plan for Sierra Leone. Freetown: Department of Education.
Rosenberg, D. (1997). University libraries in Africa. London : Global African Institute.
___________ (2000). Net training for libraries. INASP Newsletter, 15, p.15.
Simpson, D. (1984). Advancing technological innovation: the secondary impression on libraries and end users. IFLA Journal, 10 (1), pp.43-48.
