“2020 IS THE YEAR OF READING”- GHANA LIBRARY AUTHORITY

In an end of the year press briefing, The Ghana Library Authority (GhLA) has declared 2020 as the Year of Learning, under the theme “70 years of Transforming Minds through Libraries”.  The declaration forms part of commemoration activities celebrating the Ghana Library Authority’s 70 years of existence.

In a statement to the press, the Executive Director, Mr. Hayford Siaw, elaborated on government’s investment to support its vision of connecting Ghanaians to knowledge resources through innovation. In addition, he said that several measures have been put in place to ensure that public libraries are accessible and conducive for learning.

 “In 2019, our Year of Reading, we renovated 25 public libraries that were in deplorable state and increased our footprint from 61 to 70 libraries to enable the public to engage with our libraries. Our focus was to promote patronage of our libraries while encouraging reading across the country,” he said.

Furthermore, he also announced five main objectives set for GhLA’s Year of Learning in the area of; technology, book stock, reading promotion, renovation and increase in public libraries.

Speaking on the Ghana Library and technology, Mr.Siaw said that “GhLA, would be giving full scholarship to 1,000 Ghanaians to enroll on Udemy online learning platform, with support from Commonwealth of Learning. We also plan to set up Public and Senior High School libraries on our Integrated Library Management System (ILMS).”

 In addition, the authority developed a Digital Library – Ghana Library App, automated its Book processing operations, established a technology and innovation hub in Ashanti, Cape Coast and Eastern regions and connected all regional libraries to the internet.

In addition, he also stated that there is an increase in library patronage in Ghana. He explained that “Whereas, library membership increased from 12,665 in 2018 to 26,334 in 2019, representing 107.90% increment, we recorded a 48.10% increment in Library patronage, from 725,751 in 2018 to 1,074,275 in 2019,” he said.

He further stated that the authority has also added 255,887 new books to its stock, representing 40.50% increment.

Source: Ghana Web