Ghana Library Authority lauds Huawei Ghana

The Ghana Library Authority (GhLA) has lauded Huawei Ghana, an information and communication technology (ICT) company, for refurbishing the Accra Central Children’s Library at the cost of GH¢500,000.00 in 2015.

Mr Guy Amarteifio, the Greater Accra Regional Librarian, expressed his gratitude to Huawei Ghana for also refurbishing the Accra Central Adults Library’s lending and reference section, and equipping the ICT centre in 2014.

Mr Amarteifio, who commended Huawei Ghana at the celebration of the 2016 International Children’s Book Day (ICBD), praised Vodafone Ghana for its valuable support for the Regional Library in 2015.

The ICBD is a project of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) and is celebrated annually in commemoration of Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday, which falls on April 2.

Andersen was a prolific writer of children’s books and famous for his fairy tales which were not meant merely for children but for adults as well.

Each year, a different national section of IBBY has the opportunity to be the international sponsor of ICBD.

This year the ICBD is being sponsored by the Brazil section of IBBY, on the theme; “Once Upon a Time”.

The GhLA, which represents IBBY Ghana, celebrates the ICBD annually by organising competitions among junior high, upper primary and pre-schools in the form of quiz, spelling bee, essay writing, reading, drama, poetry recital, cultural dance and singing, throughout the country.

Mr Amarteifio said it was a fact that the reading culture among children had declined considerably, hence GhLA had been organising competitions in collaboration with other interested parties to whip up people’s enthusiasm in reading.

“The Greater Accra Region and the Accra Metropolis in particular undertake many reading related activities to promote and encourage reading such as the readers’ club, story hour, spelling bee, quiz and learning and reading of French,” he said.

He said the Library had also introduced a service known as the door-to-door service where mobile library was used to render library services to schools far from the library.

The library also has ICT Centre where less endowed schools go for their ICT practical lessons.

“Ghana is surrounded by French speaking countries and because of that the GhLA and Ministry of Education have created a French Corner at the Accra Central Library to encourage the general public to learn and read French,” the Regional Librarian said.

“In 2015 a total of 4,014 participated, made up of 1,718 females and 2,296 males,” he said.

Mr Amarteifio said in 2015 the mobile library door-to-door worked with seven schools with a patronage of 628 made up of 288 males and 1,340 females.

He said 105 teachers from the Methodist Education Unit were trained by the GhLA in collaboration with the Ghana Library Association on how to organise reading clinics as part of efforts to promote and encourage the culture of reading and learning.

In all 122 facilitators were trained to assist in the promotion of reading in the region.

The GhLA’s main challenge had been funding to provide basic services such as the readers’ club activities, story hour, door-to-door, reading clinics and mobile library services.

Mr Amarteifio, therefore, appealed to the public and benevolent organisations to go to the aid of GhLA to support its activities since government could not do it alone.

He urged metropolitan, municipal, district assemblies and opinion leaders to see the public libraries as an integral part of the community and support the mobile library service to reach out to the un-served and under-served communities.

He said the media should also collaborate with the GhLA to publicise its activities to attract more users and sponsors.