GIJ's Richard McMillan Library launches new products, services

The Richard McMillan Library of Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) on Wednesday launched four library products and services as part of efforts to reposition its services to promote quality teaching and learning in the post-Covid era.

These include a new website that serves as an interactive gateway and one-stop-shop for all resources and services provided by the Library, an institutional

Read full articlerepository to showcase the Institute's publications, especially, faculty publications and student dissertations.

The rest are an online public access catalogue which, which enables patrons to see all collections without physically visiting the Library and a RemoteXs, an online platform that provides secure access to comprehensive resources, including knowledge and research commons with over 60 internet-enabled computers.

Speaking at the event, the Deputy Rector of Ghana's premier Journalism school and the Chairman of the Library Committee, Prof. Eric Oppong Mensah said libraries are the fundamentals of academic life at the higher education level where tangible knowledge is produced and reproduced.

Hence, according to him, it's crucial to have a library that adequately provides students, faculties and researchers with the needed academic resources even when they are away from the physical location of the facility."

He applauded the leadership and management of the library for their performance and assured them of the Institute's management's commitment and support for their efforts to modernise the library to serve both internal and external customers in the post covid digital era.

On her part, the immediate past Head Librarian of the University of Ghana, Prof. Perpetua Dadzie, said in order to transition the Richard McMillan Library of the GIJ into a modern the facility requires high-speed computers and Internet connectivity, access to scholarly databases, e-books and journals as part of the ICT infrastructure.

According to Prof. Dadzie, a modern library should be able to provide access to and preservation of scholarly content through the conversion of hard copies into formats such as texts, pictures and sounds.
She advised the library staff to undergo continuing professional education in emerging technologies to enable them to handle information in a digitalised world.

“Staff need to be proficient in emerging technology to create, organise and disseminate information to users,” she advised.

Members of the Library staff as part of the event exhibited and demonstrated how the products and services could be accessed.