THE ASHANTI REGIONAL LIBRARY IN PERSPECTIVE: ONLY ONE FUNCTIONAL COMPUTER
As gateways to knowledge and culture, libraries play a
fundamental role in our society. The Unesco Public Library Manifesto
states that the public library, the local gateway to knowledge, provides a
basic condition for lifelong learning, independent decision-making and cultural
development of the individual and social groups (Unesco, n.d.).
Public libraries consequently give the chance to individual
edification supports the adoration for learning and engage individuals to
satisfy their civic obligation. They provide facilities to perusers to get
learning through books and other data sources. It is to a great extent from
public libraries that one can gain positive reading habits.
Additionally, the resources and services
public libraries offer great opportunities for leaning, support literacy and
education, and help shape the new ideas and perspectives that are central to a
creative and innovative society. They also help ensure an authentic record of
knowledge created and accumulated by past generation. In a world
without libraries, it would be difficult to advance research and human
knowledge or preserve the world’s cumulative knowledge and heritage for the
future generations.
Public libraries are utilized for reasons other
than getting books. School kids, understudies, hopeful college understudies,
laborers and other expert specialists in urban territories have a tendency to
rely upon open libraries in their mission for information (Agyen-Gyasi, 1996).
In recent times, public libraries provide
Internet access for users who otherwise would not be able to connect to these
services. In addition to access, many public libraries offer training and
support to computer users. Once access has been achieved, there still remains a
large gap in people’s online abilities and skills. It is in the light of the
above that countries make adequate provision for public libraries to provide
educational, cultural and recreational roles to its citizenry.
Evans (1964), Osei-Bonsu (1988) and Bukenya
(2009) have given background information about the development of libraries in
Ghana in general and public libraries in particular. In their view, the main
factors that contributed towards the provision of public libraries in Ghana
were the impact of missionary activities on the community (which included
bringing literacy to the people and setting up of presses to ensure the speedy
publication of reading materials to sustain literacy) and the introduction of
formal education in the Gold Coast.
Others include the pioneering work of Bishop
Orfeur Aglionby who was responsible for the early promotion of reading among
Ghanaians; the British Council initiative which helped lay the foundation for
national library services; the proliferation of literacy societies and
improvement clubs in the latter part of the nineteenth century (which provided
library facilities of some sort for members) and the awareness of the need for
further education and the growing desire for additional knowledge as manifested
in the activities of the literary societies.
The Ghana Library Board opened the Ashanti
Regional Library in Kumasi in 1951 and its permanent Library building put up in
1954. It is one of the ten (10) regional libraries out of the total of (sixty-one)
61 public or community libraries currently in Ghana. The Ashanti Regional
Library popularly referred to as the Ashanti Library is located within the
premises of the Centre for National Culture (formerly the Ghana National
Cultural Centre) in Kumasi a few metres away from the main lorry station
“Kejetia”.
The library is intended to provide service to
about 90 suburbs in the Kumasi Metropolis as well as the districts within the
region. The constraints facing the library include inadequate book stock and
reading space to meet the ever increasing schools and student numbers, poor
funding, inadequate computers connected to the Internet, lack of initiative as
major decisions concerning the operations are taken at the headquarters in
Accra and low staff morale among others.
Currently, the Ashanti Library has four
thousand (4000) books and only one functional computer. The Ashanti
Regional Director of the Ghana Library Authority, Ms Elizabeth Arthur, has
called for immediate support for the rehabilitation of libraries in the
country. Ms Arthur cautioned that until library facilities in the country
were given the needed attention, no education policy in the country would make
its desired impact since every policy introduced would need the targeted
students to read more.
According to Ms Arthur, out of the 30 computers
in the Ashanti Regional Library in Kumasi, only one was functioning,
attributing this to lack of funds to repair the broken down computers. This,
according to her, had compelled the library to stop the provision of Internet
services to the public who used the facility to conduct research for their
studies, as well as enhance their acquisition of knowledge.
Source: Ghana| Charles Kwasi Marfo | Luv 99.5 FM/Nhyira 104.5 FM
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