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Front view of the refurbished library. INSET: Mr Ofosu Frimpong (hand raised), Ashanti Regional Director, Ghana Library Authority, explaining a point to Nana Owusu Appau III (middle), the Gyaasehene of Bantama. With them is Dr Elisabeth Sarkodie-Mensah, the outgoing Deputy Permanent Delegate of Ghana to UNESCO. Pictures: EMMANUEL BAAH
Front view of the refurbished library. INSET: Mr Ofosu Frimpong (hand raised), Ashanti Regional Director, Ghana Library Authority, explaining a point to Nana Owusu Appau III (middle), the Gyaasehene of Bantama. With them is Dr Elisabeth Sarkodie-Mensah, the outgoing Deputy Permanent Delegate of Ghana to UNESCO. Pictures: EMMANUEL BAAH

Ashanti Region library refurbished

The Ashanti Regional Library has been refurbished and reopened to the general public after its temporary closure a month ago. This paved the way for ancillary works to be carried out on the building situated on the premises of the Centre for National Culture in Kumasi.

The children's library,  which hitherto, accommodate 22 children at a time, can now host more than 100 pupils, making the period where readers struggled for space a thing of the past.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Library Authority (GhLA), Mr Hayford Siaw, together with some staff of the authority, were in Kumasi last Saturday to inaugurate the edifice for use by school-going children.

Also present at the short ceremony were the outgoing Deputy Permanent Delegate of Ghana to UNESCO, Dr Elisabeth Sarkodie-Mensah, and the Gyaasehene of Bantama, Nana Owusu Appau III.

E-learning, Ghana Library App

At the event, Mr Siaw said aside the expansion of the library with adequate stock, 10 computers with internet access had also been installed at the library to help children read wide across the globe.

He said the library has also been equipped with a projector, adding that the facility had been well stocked and ready to absorb all children in the municipality, irrespective of the schools they attended.

Mr Siaw said in view of the authority's commitment to introduce children to electronic learning, it had developed a mobile application, known as the Ghana Library App, which allows pupils to get access to the stock at the library from the comfort of their schools or at home.

He explained that all one needed to do was to get a mobile phone that supported internet to download and access the application, adding that it was even free of charge for Vodafone subscribers.

He emphasised that it was not surprised that the Ghana Library Authority was recognised globally as the 'Library of the Years’ at the London Book Fair International Excellence Awards 2021 for its outstanding commitment to using technology to support remote learning and promote information skills, literacy and reading.

Read wide

Dr Sarkodie-Mensah advised schoolchildren not to allow the books to remain idle on the shelves, but always visit the library and make good use of the facility, adding that those in deprived communities wished they had such a facility to enable them to increase their vocabulary.

That notwithstanding, she appealed to librarians to always guide children who visited their premises to get the requisite books they needed to improve their reading.

For his part, the Ashanti Regional Director of GhLA, Mr Ofosu Frimpong, appealed to corporate bodies and philanthropists to support the authority to enable it to reach out to all the 45 districts in the region.

He said though the region was blessed with a mobile library van, the cost of fuelling it remained a herculean task and called on all to come to its aid.

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