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The African University Librarian In The Information AgeINTRODUCTION

Since their inception, libraries have maintained their sovereignty as the main storage of understanding in society. Nowadays, novel data technologies outfitted with the personal computer, telecommunications and optical media are significantly affecting libraries. ICTS, for quick, is used here to include computer hardware, computer software and telecommunication products. It has been an indispensable device and has fantastic impact globally. Of all the diversified technologies of our time, progress in information and communication technologies has no doubt had, and continues to have considerable influence on the global economic climate. It helps make it attainable to collect, approach and transmit details at breathtaking speed and declining expense. It increases productivity, improves top quality and efficiency in all types of companies.

The impact is witnessed in varied locations this kind of as health-care, finance and banking, transportation, publishing and management. Information technologies is currently shifting our lives in various techniques. It facilitates communication irrespective of distance, relieves a single of a fantastic deal of tough, dirty and repetitive work and gives handle above the organic environment. As Knopp (1984) realistically observed, the library is presently standing on a crossroad and must try out to locate a helpful stability amongst the classic library functions and strategies, and the new difficulties. The African university librarian will spend a tremendously large cost in preserving standard services and embracing the technological advances. This notwithstanding, it must be paid if the African librarian desires to interpose or continue to be the mediator between the user and info. It is the librarian's function to make News In Ghana certain that the resulting use of computer systems and telecommunication and any other acceptable technology contributes in cost successful methods to the requirements of scholarship and investigation because "he librarians have the experience in obtaining components in a selection of formats and make them available for a variety of purposes" (Simpson, 1984, p.38).

THE AFRICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN

Two programmes of the Worldwide Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), the Universal Bibliographic Handle (UBC) and the Universal Availability of Publications (UAP), have contributed immensely to a broad and straightforward entry to print info. Anything comparable can be accomplished to offer the identical accessibility to electronic data. African university librarians could consider the legacy of the aforementioned programmes and tranpose them into a new vision for an electronic potential.

At the 2nd meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on University Libraries held in Accra in 1999, the need to have to give priority to the improvement and the troubles of entry to the new information technologies had been stressed. It was emphasized that university management structures need to acknowledge the centrality of the library as a pedagogic device (AAU, 199). Continuing schooling programmes for African libraries to facilitate reskilling, which meets the dynamic data atmosphere, should be supported due to the fact there have to be a concentration in instruction for engineering regardless of the area of librarianship one specializes in. It is a truism that "librarians want to know how to accessibility and filter what is on the net" (Rosenberg, 2000, p.15).

IMPLICATIONS OF Details TECHNOLOGIES

A college of believed forcefully argues that the benefits of details technological innovation are double-edged. Technologies as well seems to have improved rather than decreased the woes of African university libraries in the provision of details. Unique products is required to access and to retrieve information that comes in electronic format. There are difficulties of storage and conservation even when the gear is offered. Engineering can only be set up and utilized if satisfactory and sound funding supports it. It is incontrovertible that the most critical element really worth investigating critically is the economic side of the situation. In Sierra Leone, the university administration initially centrally budgeted about six % for its college and institute libraries. Central funding even so has been replaced by collegiate funding which is inadequate (Rosenberg, 1997). Management should acknowledge and assistance the centrality of its academic nerve centre and guarantee the sustainability of the library programmes and providers.