Library now goes digital to remain relevant to tech-savvy generation
Youth at the Kenya National Library Service Kisumu computer lab. It plans to train 10,000 youth in the next two years. PHOTO | TOM OTIENO
What you need to know:
Kisumu facility has over 30m online resources including electronic books, journals and videos.
The emergence of online resource centres is taking a toll on traditional libraries which now have to struggle to replace their hard-copy texts with soft content.
Kisumu National Library Service, which has over 30 million online resources including electronic books, journals, videos and documentaries; is way ahead of its Kenyan peers.
The facility, which serves 15 million people in Nyanza and Western Kenya, was the first in Africa to win the coveted Public Library Innovation Award last year. The award honours leading institutions in the use of technology in communication.
“We are trying to demystify the notion that public libraries contain old books and lack creativity. Kisumu is now competing with developed countries in terms of access and sharing of information online,” said Moses Imbayi, the Library Coordinator.
Mr Imbayi said that a lot of content is found online and that going electronic will attract readers, especially the young and tech-savvy.
The library’s daily visits had dropped from an average of 400 per day to 500 as the youth opted to use smartphones and cybercafes to read and research.
The library partnered with the US government, Book Aid International Group, Electronic Information for Libraries and other organisations to upgrade technology in library.
“So far, we have 35 tablets, 17 computers, 25 e-books which carry 2,000 books each, and one electronic granary,” said Mr Imbayi.
An e-grannary is an external hard-drive with a capacity of two terabytes. It is accessed through computers in he library. One can access research papers, topics on the curriculum, and motivational materials, among others.
The e-grannary cost Sh204,000. Library users can also borrow e-books and other materials in soft copy and read or listen to them on their laptops and mobile phones.
Mr Imbayi said that online information is cheap and that most children’s books can be downloaded for as little as Sh20. Use of technology, he said, has restored the number of library users to 500 per day — mainly young people and children.
Going online has also done away with cases of returning books late, losses and thefts. One can borrow up to four books which disappear from the borrower’s device after two weeks.
Book Aid International has also introduced tablets at the library. The gadgets have a special software which denies children access to pornographic sites on the Internet.
The software, Kid’s Place, also guides users to educative content. “We have introduced tablets with special software that familiarises children to online information. They can learn to spell words, creative mathematics, science and other entertaining things without straying to other sites,” said Mr Imbayi.
Parents with smartphones can visit the www.knl.ac.ke site and request to have the software installed in their devices.
“So that when a child requests to use your phone you just tap on the Kid’s Place app and leave the phone with him,” said Mr Imbayi. The library also offers computer literacy classes.
“We have already trained 300 school leavers through our Digital Opportunity Programme where they learn to research, visit the online library and so on. We are targeting 10,000 youths in the next two years,” said Mr Imbayi.
Ms Rose Nanjala, 21, from Nakuru, is a beneficiary of the programme. “I registered here when I had no skills on computers, but today I can do a lot of things right from sending mail to researching,” she said.
Biggest achievement
‘‘Our biggest achievement has been involving the community in the online project. We have volunteers from across Western Kenya and beyond. We also have outreach programmes across 150 schools in Nyanza, Western Kenya to Eastern Uganda’’ said Mr Imbayi.
A cross border programme serves learners from as far as Mbale in Uganda. The library takes content to member schools.
Learners are also taught skills in video-conferencing which allows them to debate with up to 11 other students in remote areas as far as Nakuru, Busia, Kericho and Kisumu simultaneously.
“The Vsee programme, for instance, is a tool that US readership ambassadors occasionally use to reach and teach up to 2,300 students at a go,” said Mr Imbayi.
However, the library still has 62,000 copies of hard books on various disciplines. Borrowers, Mr Imbayi said, prefer digital books. The main challenge facing the library is that the digital resources are limited and users sometimes queue to access them.
“Kisumu library competes fairly with those found in the US and Europe. Even the Library of Congress in Britain has 200 million hard copies and not as digital as we may imagine. Where they beat us is in the use of computers to order for books and delivery using robots,” Mr Imbayi concluded.
