LIBRARIES: NATIONAL REGIONAL AND MAJOR : COUNTRIES: NIGERIA: National Library to Go Digital, Says Ikpaahindi
National Library to Go Digital, Says Ikpaahindi By Tom Chiahemen, Senior Correspondent, Abuja Monday 2nd January, 2006 Daily Independent <http://www.independentng.com/life/lsjan020609.htm> Acting National Librarian, Dr. Linus Ikpaahindi, has embarked on a number of programmes aimed at positioning the National Library of Nigeria (NLN) for the task of contributing to the world of knowledge. Already, the national headquarters and 19 branches of the National Library across the country have been successfully automated and computerised, while the staff in Abuja and Lagos offices have received ICT training to equip them for the challenges and demands of modern-day electronic library services. Ikpaahindi, who spoke with Daily Independent in Abuja last Wednesday, said the first step in the direction of lifting the NLN to global status was the organisation of the "Greenstone Software for Digitisation" workshop for 15 selected staff at the headquarters in June 2005. The Greenstone Software programme, which is supported by UNESCO, generates index automatically from scanned pages and is available on the Internet. It is expected to give the National Library and other participating institutions from Nigeria the platform to serve as contributor to the world of knowledge since, according to Ikpaahindi, it converts library texts into electronic formats or CD-ROM. <snip> On funding, he lamented that only about N20 million was made available to the NLN in 2004 for the purpose of servicing 19 libraries across the country. In 2005, he said, N13 million was allocated to the NLN, "whereas the British Council library (Abuja), as small as it is, spends over N30 million annually on books." ---------------------------------------- The complete article may be read at the URL above. Sincerely, David Dillard Temple University (215) 204 - 4584 [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/net-gold> <http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/ringleaders/davidd.html> <http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/net-gold.html> <http://www.LIFEofFlorida.org> Digital Divide Network <http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/jwne> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/K12Admin/> _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
