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The Need For Networks Among Public,Academic, and School Libraries inMetropolitan Sierra LeoneJohn Abdul Kargbo aa Fourah Bay College , University of Sierra Leone , Freetown, SierraLeonePublished online: 03 Dec 2009.

To cite this article: John Abdul Kargbo (2009) The Need For Networks Among Public, Academic,and School Libraries in Metropolitan Sierra Leone, Public Library Quarterly, 28:4, 344-353, DOI:10.1080/01616840903343963

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The Need For Networks Among Public,Academic, and School Libraries in Metropolitan

Sierra Leone

JOHN ABDUL KARGBO

Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, Freetown, Sierra Leone

Metropolitan Sierra Leone is made up of Freetown, the capital cityand its environs. Within its bounds are dispersed a variety oflibraries, each with the mission of providing adequate, relevantand up-to-date materials tailored to the needs of their numerousclientele. However, because of stringent budget cuts and a lack ofhuman and material resources, these institutions are unable tocarry out their missions. One way to improve this situation isthrough collaboration in the provision of materials and services.This article explores the need for the establishment for networksamong public, academic and school libraries in metropolitanSierra Leone. The article begins by defining metropolis followed bya brief recounting of some features of a metropolis, the libraryscene in metropolitan Sierra Leone and a consideration ofplausible areas for networks among these libraries. The articleconcludes with a discussion of some issues that have to be faced ifthe proposed network is to materialise.

KEYWORDS Sierra Leone, metropolitan libraries, networking,library cooperation, inter-library cooperation, library consortia,library services, information services

For professionals, the inability of Sierra Leone’s libraries to deliver basicservices is very troubling. Regardless of their building, stock, financial andhuman resource limitations, libraries are widely recognised as fundamentaleducational institutions second only to schools in their importance. The

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Received 08/09; accepted 08/09Address correspondence to John Abdul Kargbo, Institute of Library, Information &

Communication Studies, Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, Private Mail Bag,Freetown, Sierra Leone. E-mail: johnabdulkargbo@yahoo.com

Public Library Quarterly, 28:344–353, 2009Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0161-6846 print / 1541-1540 onlineDOI: 10.1080/01616840903343963

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ultimate goal of librarianship is to make possible those moments wheninformation and knowledge transfer takes place from media to the minds ofreaders. This purpose exists in individual and comprehensive library work. Italso can be carried out through institutional cooperation.

At a time in history when literacy was highly limited, those whogoverned generally believed that a single scholarly library could bringtogether all the materials that a nation or a great city would ever need.Today, in the face of interdisciplinary studies and the torrent of paper andelectronic publications on paper and electronically, we recognize a need formultiple types of libraries all catering to different constituencies. In advancedcountries like Britain, Canada, Australia, Germany, and the United States ofAmerica, library and information staff make attempts to join in cooperativeventures to achieve more comprehensive coverage and easier accessthrough planning material expenditures and sharing their resources. SierraLeone is bereft of such collaborative ventures, and there is every need toestablish them to improve library services for all citizens.

THE METROPOLIS

Sierra Leone is a metropolis. Sierra Leone covers a total area of 71,740 km(27,699 sq mi; Wikipedia, Sierra Leone). In developed countries most peoplelive in metropolitan areas. In the United States of America, for example,about 80% of the people live in the nation’s 268 metropolitan statistical areas.In Canada, about 60% the people reside in 25 metropolitan areas (The WorldBook Encyclopaedia, 2000). Metropolitan Sierra Leone is, however, made upof Freetown, the capital city, plus a number of surrounding villages andsettlements such as Kissy Mess Mess, Wellington, Lumley, Hill Station,Regent, Goderich, Gloucester, Leicester, Jui, and Hastings. In other words, inSierra Leone, nearly every person lives within the metropolis.

For definitional purposes, metropolitan areas have a number of featuressome of which deserve consideration here. It consists of a central city andthe developed area that surrounds it. The developed area may be made upof different jurisdictions—cities, boroughs, townships or villages.Metropolitan areas have a central city with a population total of fiftythousand or more.

For a settlement to be metropolitan there must be a large number ofpeople. Sierra Leone has population of over 4.9 million according to the 2004national census. Of this number over a million live in Freetown, the capitalcity, and surrounding villages due to rural-urban migration as well to the civilwar (1991–2001).

Interdependence is another key feature of a metropolis. Extensiveeconomic interchange and social communications take place amongresidents, groups and individuals located in different parts of the

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metropolitan area. Residential suburbs depend on the metropolis for theirdaily supplies like clothing, food, entertainment, newspapers, employmentand hospitals to cite but a few examples. On the other hand the central citydepends on the outlaying villages and settlements for much of its labourforce; downtown merchants draw most of their customers from those areas.

Metropolitan areas are further characterised by specialization madepossible through population concentration and technological advancement.This is reflected in land use and commercial and industrial activities. Forinstance some sectors of Freetown like Kissy Mess Mess, Lumley, Leicester,Hill Station and Regent are set aside as residential areas; others like Kanikay,Wellington, Dworzark Farm, and Calaba Town are largely industrial areas.Found in these areas are shopping centres, schools, industrial parks, andentertainment centres dispersed at varied locations.

Decentralisation is an important dimension of metropolitanism. In thecity, there are varied government departments and non governmentalorganisation offices. Residents in the metropolis are exposed to the use ofpublic facilities, museums, parks, and sports arenas all of which requireexpensive maintenance. Those who live in suburbs consider the city as theirworkplace because of its commercial and industrial activities. They also usethe city’s cultural, professional, and recreational facilities and services. Inparallel, they endure joblessness and constant taxation but there is usuallyno central authority to handle problems of housing, sanitation, water supply,and electricity.

Often there is a divide between the slightly rich city dwellers and therelatively poor suburban resident. In Freetown for example, the divide isimminent among those in the West who live up to international standardswhile those in the East live below even the most minimal definition of apoverty line, and this condition threatens the social order. In a view toaddressing the problem of the divide between the wealthier and poor, themetropolitan government, the Freetown City Council, has been givenincreased powers by the central government for the provision of watersupply, sewage disposal, arterial roads, health and welfare services,metropolitan parks, property assessment, public housing and development,schools, city planning and most aspects of licensing.

THE LIBRARY SCENE IN THE METROPOLIS

The library scene in the metropolis is made up of public, school, academic,special, teacher training college, and polytechnic institutions. These areclassified as ‘‘traditional’’ libraries because of the dominance of printedmatter, especially book publications, and their manual routines. Thistraditional pattern of library services is based on the relative immobility ofusers and materials alike. Books are scarce due partly to their relatively high

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cost, non existence of prolific writers, low literacy rate, and the nonexistence of a reading culture. Mail services are slow and unreliable.Information and Communication Technology services are a relatively newphenomenon and a large proportion of the populace do not have thisfacility. What is more, some of these libraries lack photocopying services.Hence users are often confined to those materials that are available ininstitutions close to their areas.

The public library, which doubles as a national library, is meant to serveas a model institution, but its service units are confined entirely to towns likeBo, Kenema, Makeni, Bonthe, and Kailahun with reading points at Kissy,Bumbuna, and Kabala.

This library service has several inadequacies. For instance, a majority ofthe population have no public library facilities at all worth the name; only asmall minority of the whole population benefit from such services becauseof their limited location.

Even when the public library has a presence, there are vast differencesin the materials and services provided. Services are reasonably fair inFreetown, the capital city where the central library is located but poor intowns, and non existent in rural areas. The prevalence of poverty in ruralareas means that the poor receive poor library services.

There are similar disparities in library services among educationalinstitutions in the country. Very few elementary and secondary schools havestandard libraries; college and polytechnic libraries are relatively small andill-equipped as compared to those in the two universities whereexpenditures per capita are one hundred times higher than those in collegesand polytechnics.

There are no union catalogues, cooperative development of resources,resource sharing, cooperative storage facilities, sponsored planning andsurveys and central processing of materials. Filming is non existent andlibraries themselves are not equipped to make or use the production. Sincethese libraries are run on shoe-string budgets, there is no surplus stock forloan, and requests to borrow current or heavily used materials could rarelybe granted.

Finding a library with enough current and adequate materials is rare; thewillingness of staff to lend a copy of a requested title not in use is anotherproblem; while requesting loans and receiving materials by mail will takeyears.

In short, there are no cooperative arrangements among theseinstitutions. To add injury to the problem the flow of new technology(ICTs) is minimal. Collection development in these institutions is largely bydonation while the curriculum and teaching methods in schools and collegesdo not require intensive library use as pupils and students are instructed andquizzed orally by their tutors.

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To conclude, these libraries hardly come near to meeting the needs ordemands of their numerous clientele, let alone meeting internationalstandards.

A slender thread binds these libraries together. That is the professionalassociation, The Sierra Leone Association of Archivists, Librarians andInformation Scientists (SLAALIS), which tries to bring together all profes-sional and non professional staff to share common concerns.

In recent years however, pressure has mounted for libraries in themetropolis to initiate networking activities so as to avail current and relevantmaterials to meet the needs of their varied clientele. The fact in the main isthat there is increased volume of materials published every year coupledwith the constantly changing nature of audio visuals which no one librarycan easily afford to provide at any given time. Metropolitan libraries in thisregard can make more resources accessible to their clientele throughnetworking ventures. The extended use of resource sharing and informationwill result in better services. One of the tenets of the country’s youngdemocracy is open access to information no matter where it is located. Whilethe ideal of information sharing is not yet fully developed, there is everyneed for libraries in the metropolis to be involved in cooperation if there isto be improved library provisions and services.

NETWORKING NEEDED

‘‘Webster’s New International Dictionary of English Language’’ (1989)defines network as a fabric or structure of threads; cords, wires or thelike, crossing each other at certain intervals and knotted or secured at thecrossing. Relating this definition to library service, a library network canbe defined as a fabric or structure designed to serve, among others, themedical doctor, the lawyer, the politician, the student, the scholar, theagriculturist, the bored housewife, the businessman, the teacher/lectureras well as the professional. The threads, cords, and wires in the fabric arethe public, special, school, national, and academic libraries, andinformation media within a community. The activities of these institutionscross each other at intervals of space-that is city, state, and regionboundaries and function in terms of their forces on a specific clientele orpurpose. This fabric is knotted or secured at the crossing by inter-libraryloans agreements, workshops, seminars conferences, professional associa-tions, telecommunication systems, contracts, and financial aid from avariety of sources.

Modern society witnesses a deluge of information which goes with thedeterminant cost of collecting, processing, sharing and disseminatinginformation. This situation calls for increased budgets for libraries tomaintain a reasonable level of acquisitions of both book and non book

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materials. In Sierra Leone, however, it is estimated that over a hundredfoldrise in library budgets is needed to maintain the same acquisition levels ofthose in the 1970s and 1980s when libraries were well supported financially.

Because of these conditions, resource sharing and cooperative venturesthrough networking are currently advocated in the country. The ultimategoal of the library network is to interlink information resources inmetropolitan Sierra Leone where there is a heavy concentration of librariesso that clientele and library staff alike can access information regardless of itslocation, format medium, language, and script. Any proposed network will,among other things, benefit member libraries in the following ways:

N Gain access to a large volume of literature without increase in librarybudget;

N Acquisitions can be planned to acquire the most important materialsrequired by member libraries;

N Continuous sharing of expertise.

The development of such network requires actions in several areas liketraining, rationalization of information resources, acquisition, diffusion ofstandards, preparation of union catalogues and lists, and the generation ofdatabases.

Education in Sierra Leone is a fundamental process and libraries aremeant to complement the educational process without which much of theeducation desired could not be achieved. However there are vast differencesin the ability of these institutions to provide satisfactory services throughoutthe country. This inadequacy causes clientele to scout around for alternativeto libraries obtain the information or reading material they need. Forinstance, because of the inadequacies in school library services, pupils andtheir teachers alike depend on the public library for information. In the samevein the lapses in pubic library service compels clientele to shift their searchto academic libraries.

Invariably the weakness of one type of library places additional burdensupon another. Clientele therefore have little or no opportunity for control ofwhat facilities are available to them. This anomaly makes way for theformation of networks for efficiency of purpose.

PLAUSIBLE NETWORKING AREAS

Libraries all over the world enter into cooperative arrangements for all kindsof reasons: the provision of union catalogues and lists, joint collectiondevelopment and storage facilities, resource sharing, bibliographic controland inter library use. In Sierra Leone, however, any viable networkingarrangements among public, academic and school libraries in the metropolisshould centre on the following:

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N Provision of union catalogues and union lists. This should include thedevelopment of a selective union catalogue by date of publication, specialcollection such as periodicals and cost. It should involve the exchange ofacquisitions lists and the compilation of directories describing in severalterms the fields of strengths in metropolitan libraries. Also to be includedare union lists of serial publications (including newspapers), andcatalogues and lists of individual libraries.

N Cooperative development of resources and sharing these in terms of use.There should be joint purchase of collections. Common agreement shouldalso exist with regard to the treatment of gifts and exchanges and jointdiscard programmes. To facilitate resource sharing, area-wide networksshould be developed for free inter-library access plus borrowingprivileges to clientele that pay agreed-upon fees. Also to be includedare inter-library loans and photocopying facilities.

N Cooperative planning and surveys. There should be joint surveys ofresources, clientele and institutional needs; a committee should be formedfor cooperation planning to be giving advice on salient matters.

N Cooperative processing and storage of materials. This should be under-taken to maintain uniform bibliographic description standards based onlocal needs.

N Communication. Communication networks like telephone and Internetlinks should be facilitated. Joint publicity programmes should be under-taken to sensitise users about the availability of materials in the librariesinvolved in the networking. In this regard there should be less formalcommittees and meetings among them for easy reach.

N Joint staff development. There are many staff members in the employ ofacademic libraries with public libraries having the second highestemployment vice. Those in school libraries are relatively small, oftenranging between one and three based on the size of the school andlibrary. In parallel staff in academic and public libraries are better trainedas opposed to those in school libraries. Joint staff developmentprogrammes in technical processing of materials, provision and use ofonline services and management in general should be developed. Ifpossible, staff of cooperating institutions should be posted across alllibraries involved in the network for experience sharing.

These networking arrangements call for the provision of three access levels,namely: (i) the local outlet which may be any library in the proposednetwork; (ii) a system headquarters library, which would be the pubiclibrary because of its proximity, size and availability of reference staff tobackstop other local outlets; and (iii) the provision of a research andreference library to serve as back up to the system headquarters libraries. Inthe case best known to this writer, the academic library at Fourah Bay

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College should serve that purpose. School libraries are to enter the networkas users at the local network while academic and the public libraries canenter at any level.

CONCERNS

The accelerating trend of the last decade has been to facilitate and promote area-wide access by everybody who needs such access, to all library resources of thearea and at the same time to maximise the resources as well as their access. Theproblem has been and remains how to achieve this objective without interfering‘‘unduly’’ with the particular mission and staff work of any participating library.Among the concerns for the provision of a viable network is the attitude of thethose to be involved in the network: librarians, their superiors (that is Boards,College Councils Presidents and University Committees and Heads), and eventhe clientele, who often have to be convinced that lesser access to a largepercentage of all materials is better than more immediate access to a smallerpercentage. It is not always easy to convince these people. Next is reciprocity.The degree of reciprocity, if realistically appraised, can be a handy guide bywhich the success of a cooperative effort may be predicated. In Sierra Leone,however, large academic libraries and the public library have long found thelack of balance in interlibrary loan arrangements a problem; besides there arelimits to the extent to which these institutions can share their resources withoutunduly damaging the performance of their primary functions.

Planning is an effective tool for the success of the proposed network.Numerous surveys carried out in the country for any plausible networkamong these libraries have always pointed to this fact. Plans andprogrammes based on relevant facts are more likely to be successful thanthose which simply accumulate from small and uncoordinated programmesand experiments. Even the needs of parties to be involved in the networkshould be well demonstrated and defined such as qualified recipients ofservice, language restriction, and format of the content and means of service,subject areas of interest, special new resources to be used and channels ofcommunication. Existing resources must be summarized and inventoriedincluding collection, personnel and facilities. Agreements must be reachedon responsibilities on lending and acquisitions, on standardisation, onequating the needs of the networks to one’s local needs, on compatibility ofrecords and procedures, and even of people.

Cost is another concern. Libraries in the country are run on shoe stringbudgets. In networking chores not only is there the question of absolute costand the related value judgment of whether or not the gain to society is worththe cost but there are problems with relative cost as well. Concerns likewhether or not the same ends cannot be accomplished effectively and forless money need to be borne in mind. The hope of the future lies in libraries

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involved in the network providing high level services. This in turn involves,amongst other things, well funded units which current metropolitan librariescannot boast of; hence a pitfall.

Time is also a factor. It is difficult in many instances for a formalizednetwork to equate the expenditure of an informal system where one can say‘‘this item should be in X library, let’s try them first.’’ The mere establishmentof a system almost inevitably builds a degree of inflexibility andcumbersomeness which at times could be comparatively slow and costlyeven though it expedites services for many users most of the time. Furtherthe full potential of the network concept can never be realised untillibrarians think networks and systems. In this vein, the possibility of librarynetworks depends to a large extent on the willingness of each librarian toforget for a while that he/she is a college, public or school librarian. Theymust try to see the whole problem and ask themselves honestly if there isanything they can do; any way they can use the resources at their disposal tohelp without being detrimental to the usual public they are employed toserve. This viewpoint will not come naturally; it will have to be taught andlived in library schools and the libraries involved in the network.

When visualising library networks one should recall familiar routineslike the provision of interlibrary loans, union catalogues and lists, as well asjoint access to little used research materials. In parallel there are educationalactivities within libraries in the network which need to be identified anddeveloped in staff such as organisation of seminars, workshops, exhibitionsand consultancies especially in academic libraries. While these are intendedfor staff, some are open to outsiders. These efforts call for constant userorientation, staff training and planning centred on users and their needs.Planning should be jointly done; attempts should be made to bring togetherall the resources to make possible a service of the kind needed for all usersof metropolitan libraries. There should therefore be widespread coopera-tion, networks and sharing of responsibility with the major burden shared bythe largest and best developed libraries.

CONCLUSION

Librarianship rests on articles of faith; instantaneous and complete access tothe total record for everybody is a desirable objective for any library.Librarians in metropolitan Sierra Leone are cognizant of the benefits to bederived from any proposed network. With it, there is promise that newgenerations of library organisations and development can provide totalaccess to augmented information resources without destroying or duplicat-ing the valuable services of existing independent libraries. Sadly theseinstitutions continue to experience their individual problems without muchthought of how networking could help solve them. A reluctance to

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participate is to be expected. Sharing sometimes is hard when yourresources seem so small as to cause professional despair. Networking willnot start unless the national government or some other source of funds canbe found to increase the scale of resources that might be used within anetworking system. To overcome such complexities, one can only hope thatlibrarians in the country are entering a period when the profession will ceaseto preoccupy itself with the question of how they should go about doing thisand devote their talents and energy to a national dialogue on what it is thatthey are really trying to do and why.

REFERENCE

The World Book Encyclopaedia. 2000. Volume 13 (M). Chicago: World Book, Inc.

CONTRIBUTOR

John Abdul Kargbo is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Library,Information and Communication Studies at Fourah Bay College, Universityof Sierra Leone.

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