Public Libraries and E-Government in Nigeria

Developments in Information Communications Technologies (ICT) are a hallmark of the new Information Society They have provided the opportunity for governments to provide information and services online thereby promoting transparency and participatory democracy. Nigeria has keyed into this innovation to a reasonable extent. However the success of providing government services electronically has been linked to the availability of the points where the citizenry can access the Internet. The public library is on institution strategically placed in the community toserve as portals to access government services and information online. Public libraries in Nigeria are hampered from playing this role because of poor ICT infrastructure and lack of awareness amongst the citizenry of the roles of public libraries. The paper recommends that public libraries in the country should strategize on how best to provide e-government services. The Federal, State and Local governments should support public libraries so as to effectively provide e-government services emanating from their agencies

Intersection: Reading, And Adult Homelessness And Public Libraries

A deeper understanding of reading as more than a set of word-attack and decoding skills may help to guide public librarians seeking to fully implement the ethical professional standard of equitable access to information for everyone, including marginalized patrons such as adults experiencing homelessness. As public libraries respond to questions about their continued relevance in a digital age, an understanding of how libraries can contribute to solutions to community social needs such as homelessness has the potential to broaden community support for more inclusive library programming. In this qualitative study of the experience of reading among eight adults in a transitional homeless shelter in a small southern city, the power of a reading life to provide respite or escape from the struggles of homelessness is documented. Four themes emerge: (1) Reading provides a distraction from negative feelings of loneliness, melancholy, and/or boredom experienced while homeless. (2) Reading experiences temporarily transport the reader out of the negative experience of homelessness by allowing the person to travel. (3) Reading experiences assist in managing personal behavior necessary to maintaining an interface with services to overcome homelessness. (4) Reading experiences ameliorate stress by providing calm and/or comfort in the uncertain circumstance of homelessness

A model for information access and flow for electronic Governance in selected local governments in Uganda

Advances in information technology (IT) and the global shift from governance to e-governance in the public sector have motivated Uganda to put in place a robust information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure to enhance citizen access to e-information and information flow for e-governance in its local governments. However, this has not been realized due to a lack of functional information systems. This study investigated critical issues in information access and flow in Isingiro district and Mbarara municipality – two of Uganda’s upper local governments – with the aim of modeling an information system to support e-governance in these governments. Rooted in a pragmatist epistemology with an orientation towards mixed methods research (MMR), the study adopted a methodological triangulation technique. A convergent design was adopted that involved the concurrent collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. A random sampling scheme was used to select 360 participants from 8 study sites for a questionnaire survey, while a purposive sampling scheme was used to select 64 people to participate in 8 focus group discussions (FGDs) and 25 in key informant interviews. The findings of the study indicate that citizen access to e-governance information in the local governments is low. Information flow to the citizens is constrained by lack of affordable media outlets, so the local governments are forced to keep frequency of government to citizen (G2C) communication to a bare minimum. Worse still, government communication lacks formal programming: neither is it based on an information needs assessment of the citizens nor does it have a feedback mechanism. There are also myriad factors breeding inequality and social disadvantage within the communities that constrain citizen access to ICT tools and e-skills. The findings show also that the current e-governance models are ICT-intensive and highly reliant on the Internet, so they require higher e-skills levels and higher diffusion of ICT tools than those currently available in developing countries. The models are also largely civil society oriented. However, a SWOT analysis shows that the local governments have the capacity to implement a home-grown, hybrid e-governance system of information access and flow. The study recommends inter alia that the local governments establish their own broadcasting services, base their public communications on citizen e-information needs, and design multi-media communication strategies combining traditional and convergent media. More importantly, the study recommends the implementation of an interactive, hybrid and multimedia e-governance information system, whose model it articulates.Information ScienceD. Litt. et Phil. (Information Science