4 Library services for GIJ
The Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) has launched four library products and services as part of efforts to reposition its library services to promote quality teaching and learning.
They are the development of a new website to serve as an interactive gateway and a one-stop-shop for all resources and services provided by the library and an institutional repository to showcase the institute's publications, especially faculty publications and students' dissertations.
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The others are an online public access catalogue, which will enable patrons to a have a look at all collections, without visiting the library physically, and RemoteXs, an online platform that provides secure access to comprehensive resources, including e-books, journals and other e-contents, anywhere and at any time, including knowledge and research commons with over 60 Internet-enabled computers.
Members of the library staff later exhibited and demonstrated how the new products and services could be accessed.
Way Forward
The immediate past Head Librarian of the University of Ghana, Prof. Perpetua Dadzie, said in order to transition the Richard McMillan Library of the GIJ into a modern centre, there was the need for more investment in information technology infrastructure at the facility.
She mentioned high-speed computers and Internet connectivity, access to scholarly databases, e-books and journals as part of the ICT infrastructure.
According to Prof. Dadzie, a modern library should be able to provide access to and preservation of scholarly content through the conversion of hard copies into formats such as texts, pictures and sounds.
She advised the library staff to undergo continuing professional education in emerging technologies to enable them to handle information in a digitalised world.
“Staff need to be proficient in emerging technology to create, organise and disseminate information to users,” she said.
Fundamentals of academic life
For his part, the Deputy Rector of the GIJ, Prof. Eric Oppong Mensah, said libraries were the fundamentals in academic life, particularly higher education, where knowledge was produced and reproduced.
“It is crucial to have a library that is able to provide the needed resources, even when students, faculty and researchers are away from the physical spaces of the facility,” he said.
The deputy rector assured the leadership of the library of his management’s support and expressed his appreciation for their effort to modernise the library.
