Worldreader tablets have boosted reading in libraries

General News of Sunday, June 16, 2019

Source: ghananewsagency.org

2019-06-16

The local content of Worldreader for African Libraries (LOCAL) in partnership with the African Library and Information Association (AFLIA) and the Ghana Library Authority (GhLA) set up a reading tablet to reorganize reading in libraries.

The tablet, also known as the "electronic reader", increased library activity by 83%, 69% and 74% respectively in the Ashanti, Central and Volta regions.

Mr. Prince Osei Gyamfi, a facilitator, in a presentation on the impact of the electronic reader during the closing ceremony of the project in Accra, said that the number of children visiting the libraries had doubled over the past year. the project period.

Mr. Gyamfi explained that due to the increase in the number of clients, the demand of library users, supervision, children were only interested in reading on tablets but did not want to register as members of the library clubs.

He added that in the central region alone, 24,169 clients were contacted, including 6,635 from Cape Coast, 2,584 from Swedru and 14,950 from Abura Dunkwa. A total of 47 outreach and internal activities were conducted.

Mr. James Ofosu Frimpong, an animator from the Ashanti region, said that the number of library visitors because of e-readers was encouraging because e-readers could not serve them at any given time. Librarians have therefore devised means-readers

He added that the librarians had forced students to sit in pairs to read or ask them to read the same story out loud.

There were 56 awareness activities and 42 internal activities in the region during the period.

He said that most of the outreach activities took place in Kumasi and that since the city library could not accommodate a large number of students, readings were taken in schools.

Mr. Ofosu Frimpong said that one of their activities in Amansie West District was having an impact as it helped reduce absenteeism.

The project, which involved nine community libraries in three regions, trained 24 librarians, distributed 450 devices to libraries, and targeted children aged 0-12, deploying 90,000 books, 9,000 of them in local languages.