Factors Affecting the Development of Information
Infrastructure in Africa
T. Rexwhite Enakrire and O. George Onyenania
Introduction
The world is increasingly witnessing
the development of a global information
infrastructure (GII), a web of
communication networks. Through the
GII composed of information,
computing and technology (ICT), users
around the globe are able to access
modern libraries, databases, government
departments of their neighbors across
the world electronically. Chelley
(2001) posits that ‘‘the advent of
the information infrastructure or
information technology revolution and
its unprecedented capabilities to
process, store, refine and disseminate
data, information and knowledge in a
variety of ways across borders has
dramatically changed the ways in which
governments, the public and private
sectors operate World-Wide’’. Most
African countries have acknowledged
the information revolution, although,
the ability to effectively harness the
technology varies from country to
country. The elaboration of IT policy, an
integral part of the Economic
Community of Africa (ECA), is a major
determining factor in setting-up the
underlying supporting infrastructure and
enhancing the optimal use of the
technology.
When adopting the African
Information Society Initiative (AISI) in
1996, the object of member states was
to create an African information
infrastructure through access to a
global information infrastructure for
development needs and to build their
own National Information and
Communication infrastructures. This
concept has its origins in the ‘‘African
Regional Symposium on Telematics for
Development’’ organised in Addis
Ababa in April 1995 by UNESCO, ECA
and other agencies with goals to
LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS Number 2 2007, pp. 15-20, # Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 0741-9058, DOI 10.1108/07419050710751643
‘‘Building Africa’s information
Highways’’ or ‘‘Building Africa’s
information and communication
infrastructures’’ with the potential to
improve the economic development of
Africa in all areas, including:
. Agriculture – Improving conditions
for food through access to timely
information for determining opti-
mal harvesting time, locating
sources of surplus, distribution
channels and storage facilities,
provision of equitable access to
new techniques for improving agro
products.
. Education – Providing equitable
remote access to resources in sup-
port of both distance education and
strengthening educational capacity.
. Environment – Monitoring areas
threatened by environmental degra-
dation and natural disasters using
ICT tools and Geo-information
systems.
. Public Administration – Improving
internal revenue management,
social security administration and
supporting national and regional as
well as zonal co-operation and
standardisation of regulations and
legislations and encouraging demo-
cratic participation.
Effective information and communi-
cation systems or infrastructures require
reliable, low-cost and widespread
technological resources (information
infrastructures) such as computers,
software and all the components of the
telecommunications infrastructure for
processing data and information, that
could offer Africa cost – effective and
appropriate technologies to ‘‘leap-frog’’
over several generations of intermediate
technologies still in use in the industrial
world. Information is needed for
production of goods and services, and for
making wiser decisions that still must be
collected, processed, stored and utilised.
It is a general consensus that information
is an indispensable tool for the continued
survival of an organisation be it private or
public (BECTA, 2003).
However, the on-going information
explosion and extensive use of
infrastructures in industrial economies
contrast sharply with the ‘‘information
poverty’’ of developing countries (Okiy,
2006). This poverty takes many forms
of planning without facts, an unreliable
information support to decision-makers,
inadequate financial control and
cumbersome reporting and monitoring
systems, limited access to information
within and among countries, prof-
essionals and researchers without access
to national statistics and internal
research findings, scare information
support to knowledge workers,
insufficient information on natural
resources, underused indigenous and
locally produced knowledge, poor
access to timely information on national
and international markets by developing
countries like African countries where
manpower face major problems in
acquiring, retrieving, processing and
disseminating various types of
information. Many other problems or
factors that have affected and still affect
the development of information
infrastructure and information transfer
in Africa are examined and noted in this
work.
The concept of information
infrastructure
Information infrastructure reflects
technological tools, methods and access
models needed to facilitate efficient
knowledge management and transfer in
today’s massive flow of information
from various sources. They are info-
rmation and communication systems
15
required for the widespread sharing and
use of information or resources such as
computers, software and all the
components of telecommunication
infrastructure for processing data and
information. Popoola (2002, p. 42)
highlighted information infrastructure
as ‘‘human regulation, telecomm-
unications, information technology,
government support and other
information institutions’’. They are IT
infrastructures that build on centralised
systems architectures such as Web
servers (Eugenia Unity Desktop,
www.eugenia.com). It can be seen as IT
and other basic infrastructures needed in
the acquisition, processing, storage
and dissemination or transfer of
information by means of computers,
office machines and telecomm-
unications. Computers provide the
processing, inputting, storage and
retrieval facilities; while telecomm-
unications provide the facilities for the
transfer or communication of data and
information that further facilitates the
establishment and use of the information
highway (internet), a network of
independent information and comm-
unication technologies (telephone lines
television) cables, communication
satellites, computers, data transmitters
etc) that are converging into an
integrated system.
The information highway has been
regarded as an integral part of the
information infrastructure (Popoola,
2002, p. 45). He inferred that it is
believed that information infrastructure
must serve as a means to support
GNP (Gross National Products)
goals across the globe. It could therefore
be described as the range of equipment
including computer technology,
applications, basic technologies that
help to process information, which also
culminated in the development of the
GII. This is a seamless web of
communication networks, computers,
database and consumer electronics that
puts vast amounts of information at
user’s finger tips (United States
Information infrastructures Task Force,
1994). Through the GII, users around
the world will be able to access libraries,
databases, government departments, and
private organisations located anywhere
in the world (Chisenga, 1999).
16
Factors affecting the developing of
information infrastructure in Africa
Inadequate coordination of physical
connections
A number of networking projects
have made substantial efforts to set up
grassroot links in Africa. However,
many steps are redundantly duplicated
due to a lack of mutual national, sub-
regional, regional and international
coordination. ‘‘Everyone wants to
coordinate, but no one wants to
be coordinated.’’ This peculiar problem
is compounded by a lack of quantitative
information on connectivity with
implications for not knowing who is
doing what, what are the costs, what are
the plans (Adam, 1996). Adam added
that there are a number of situations
where national networks connect to
each other via intermediaries in Europe
or North America, so that a massage that
would take less than 5 min by taxi takes
a full day to arrive via e-mail. Some are
even jokingly referring to e-mail
systems in Africa as snail mail systems
due to a problem of infrastructure
backbone. At the sub-regional and
regional levels there are no plans for
backbones that interconnect African
countries. Lack of adequate technical
knowledge to develop gateways
between these links, competition for
resources and donor requirements is
making it difficult to develop active
collaboration (Dede, 2000).
For information to be beneficial to the
development of a country, it must be
available, accurate, and current. In many
developing countries, information needed
for development has become highly
segmented, divisive, and uncoordinated
(Adeyemi, 1991). Similarly, the sources
that provide for the flow of information
have become monopolistic and without
direction, thereby affecting availability as
well as accuracy and currency of
information.
Inadequacy of technical personnel
cooperation
The networking of trained
individuals is very critical for regional
cooperation. Cooperation and coor-
dination of systems managers and the
advocates of networking have been less
successful in Africa. Technical
personnel have also been unable to
coordinate networking activities and
were less interactive during the last five
years. There have not been a sufficient
number of forums to bring the majority
of networking managers together except
at a few sparkling examples like the
telematics symposium held in Addis
Ababa, April 1995. The workshop was
also obliged to handle incompatibility of
existing information equipment or
infrastructure among the licensed
organisations, operation of public
switches, trunks and associated
infrastructures as currently experienced
in the MTN, V – Mobile (now Celtel)
and Global-Communication services in
Nigeria (Dot Force, 2003).
Information poverty and poor
availability of indigenous information
via network
Omekwu (2003) posits that, ‘‘the
major bottleneck and a cause of
stagnation to the development of
technological networking in Africa has
been its weak information infra-
structure. Strategic information for
better health, functioning industries,
prompt social services, transparent
governance, sustainable environment
and development are lacken. Africa
continues to depend on the North for its
own local information’’. This
dependency needs to be reversed. On
the other hand, the ‘‘NET’’ itself is
becoming a widely used mechanism for
the exchange of information worldwide.
Yet, in Africa, it is often difficult to find
relevant information in a very short
time. It can take long periods of time
before information is retrieved from the
Web. It is however very costly for
African networks who cannot afford to
waste scarce bandwidth surfing on the
web (Richard, 2003).
Fugitive or grey document pro-
duction (since they do not pass through
any commercial publishers nor listed
publishers catalogue have also been a
problem in this regard (Omekwu, 2003).
High unsustainability of serials
publication is yet another problem in
this direction as Nwosu (2001) observes
that the Nigerian international standard
serial number centre, since inception in
1976 to date, has registered and
assigned ISSN numbers to 9,356 serial
titles. Of these, only less than half of
these serials have been received and
fully registered. What has happened to
LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS Number 2 2007
over 5,000 titles is anybody’s guess. It is
either they died before their birth or
were born but never deposited with the
National Library of Nigeria as required
by the legal deposit law. Poor physical
and bibliographic finishing, an absence
of cataloguing-in-publication data,
procuring publications from developing
countries of such publicity, distribution,
disparity in information technology
development, foreign exchange restrict-
ions are all hindering factors to the
development of information transfer in
Africa.
Telecommunication monopoly by
government and obsolete regulatory
framework in Africa
The networking problem in Africa
generally stems from obsolete policies
and a negative regulatory framework by
the Government. Telecommunications
has been considered as a public
(Government) property in many Africa
countries. Government owned tele-
communication operations are usually
inefficient. Commercial service pro-
viders are not allowed to provide value
added services (Adam, 1996). The
majority of African governments still
require longer times to understand the
value networking offers to their
competitiveness and its abilities to foster
positive changes in quality of life. Issues
such as cultural erosion, pornography,
privacy, security, loss of revenue are
often amplified by government
controlled media as opposed to
promoting empowerment via networks
and what it can achieve. It is however
noted that to prevent monopoly in the
information industry, it is necessary to
regulate the process of conglomeration
whereby vertically and horizontally
integrated corporations are concen-
trating ownership of the information
services (Omekwu, 2003).
Minimum involvement of research
institutions in network building
and diffusion in Africa
Most projects in Africa have centred
around NGOs and the private sector
without the involvement of the
academic community. The research and
academic community that would have
been a vehicle for the development of
the internet through teaching and
multiplying technical capacity has been
LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS Number 2 2007
overlooked over the years. Users from
the academic community were unable to
effectively exploit networking. The
local information economy requires
advances in the local capacity for
software research and development.
African countries can become full actors
in the area of software development if
considerable attention is given to this
area (Adam, 1996).
Unreliable telecommunication
infrastructures
In addition to high tariffs and non-
favourable traffic, African telecomm-
unication infrastructures remain
unreliable. Many countries still use
analog links that are difficult to integrate
with newer communication tech-
nologies. Other innovations in telecom
networks that bypass local analog loops
are unavailable and the licensing
processes for them are antiquated.
In Nigeria for instance, the recent
development of cellular telecomm-
unication system (MTN, Global-
communication, V-Mobile, now Celtel
etc.) services of the private sector has
not been completely reliable due to
frequent excuses by the NITEL
infrastructural breakdown and other
related factors which has consequently
brought about distorted information
transfer in the region and beyond
(Adeyemi, 1999).
Language barriers
The diversity of African
communities poses a difficulty in
integrating them to the net culture.
Language and illiteracy are central to
this problem. Most countries use
languages other than English. Network
user interfaces to these languages are
unavailable and developments in
translations are in very early stages.
Language barriers include oral
transmission. This could take the form
of group discussion, person-to-person
transmission, as well as forms of art
such as drama, poetry and song. Oral
transmission plays a very important role
in many non-literate societies and
should therefore be better harnessed.
Translation of relevant materials into
local languages that can be read and
understood by most of the potential
clients is inadequate. The inadequacy of
easy do-it-yourself manuals, pamphlets,
newspapers and other materials that can
be read by literate users is also a
hindering factor. It is evident that a
strong colonial influence is also
reflected in the language content of most
library collections. Books and other
information materials in African library
systems are almost entirely written in
the language of commerce, i.e. English,
French or Arabic. These languages
cannot be read by 95 per cent of the
affected population (Mostert, 2001).
These are also languages spoken by the
elites. The mass of potential readers are
therefore prevented from reading in a
language with which they are familiar.
In most African countries, books are
published in languages spoken by less
than 30 per cent of the population
(Mostert, 2001, quoting Chakava,
1984). A further complicating factor is
that an estimated 1,200 languages are
spoken in Africa, of which only about
600 have a written literature. All of
these factors contribute to the severe
shortage of reading materials in the
vernacular which consequently affect
the transfer of information among
Africa countries.
Lack of maintenance culture
Another facet of human capacity
challenge relates to plant maintenance,
which has been a serious problem in the
post-colonial period in Africa. This lack
of maintenance culture and a host of
other things required to develop
information infrastructure make the
project an unqualified success in Africa
(Ifidon, 1999). The case of NITEL in
Nigeria is a good example. Poor
maintenance had contributed in no small
way to the inefficient utilisation of
Nigeria’s existing network.
Political instability in Africa
Frequent changes and the long years
of military adventurism into political
leadership have brought about changes
and instability of government in African
countries. This is also a factor affecting
the development of information
infrastructure in the region. The frequent
changes in government bring about
changes in the development prog-
rammes and policies that also affect the
information sector. It has lead to
abandonment of projects, huge foreign
debts, incessant closure of educational
17
institutions due to students unrest and
teachers’ strikes, ineffective postal and
telecommunication systems all combined
to mitigate against the evolution of
enabling infrastructures for a functional
national inter-lending and interlibrary
cooperatives programmes among
African nations (Nwosu, 2003).
This phenomenon has been a
problem of information infrastructural
development in Africa that results from
frequent political unrest (Civil war)
which has caused disruptions to the
economic development of African
Nations. For instance, the Nigeria Civil
War (1967-1970) affected her infor-
mation infrastructural growth as most
communication networks were
destroyed at that time. Other African
nations such as Somalia, Liberia,
Rwanda, Ethiopia were similarly left out
from crucial developments due to the
political climate.
Inadequate human resource
In 1990 Africa had 75 R&D
Scientists per 1 million population
compared to a world average of 1,000.
Africa contributes 0.7 per cent to the
world’s R&D scientists and engineers in
spite of having about 13.5 per cent of the
world’s population. The lack of human
capacity tends to result in the
centralisation of technical expertise in
an attempt to get the greatest value out
of a scare resource. This in turn leads to
the available expertise being very
stretched, with people trying to handle
far greater and more diverse tasks than
they would on other continents.
Ofsted (2002) saw that, ‘‘Leaders and
experts world-wide increasingly
recognise human resource capacity
development as potentially the most
crucial constraint in the effective
deployment of NICI to build sustainable
information societies. Hence, preparing
Africa for the information age primarily
necessitates appropriate investment in
its human resources’’. During the initial
phase of the establishment of libraries in
Africa, expatriate librarians formed the
core of library workers. They were all
trained abroad, giving them a
cosmopolitan field of experience.
Although their intention seems to have
been the development of a system and
services totally integrated with the
social and political circumstances of
each individual community, their
18
previous working experience worked
against the fulfilment of their purpose
(Sturges and Neil, 1998). Human
resources development involves a
process aimed at providing continuous
and proper staffing in such a manner as
to ensure that appropriate skills are
available within the work force when
needed to meet the organisation’s
varying requirements and to enable the
organisation to discharge its legal,
statutory, and social responsibilities and
that the public has its services and the
society at large (Adimorah, 1993).
Harsh fiscal policy (taxation)
Fiscal policies (such as tariffs, duties
and licenses fees), drastically increase
import tariffs and taxes on information
and communication technologies, and
has escalated the cost of telecomm-
unications services and non-interest to
serving the rural areas and the grassroots
level, as well as non-provision of tax
holidays for information technology
industries (National Policy of
Education, 1992).
High levels of taxation for value
added service provides and in particular
the taxation on information and other
forms of businesses which are in a start-
up phase are not yet profitable in Africa.
High licensing fees in which cabling
companies have to pay 5 per cent of the
capital value of the system as a licence
fee and 2.5 per cent of the turnover as an
annual concession fee (Ajayi et al.,
1998) is problematic. This situation can
be curtailed by gravity if IT firms tax
holidays at the start-up phase (Popoola,
2002, p. 45).
Poverty among African nations
(financial problem)
The major obstacle hampering the
development and extension of
information systems was lack of funds
and absence of the engineering
infrastructure needed for the
development and production of spares
and components (Eadie, 2001). Foreign
exchange restrictions are effected by
adverse foreign exchange transactions.
High cost of ICT facilities or
information infrastructure has been
reported as one of the factors which
influence provision and use of ICT
services (Adomi, 2006). Poverty has led
to under funding which has continued
to inhibit the rapid development of
telecommunications such as NITEL in
Nigeria in 1985. This situation has
worsened in recent years because of
large-scale devaluation of the national
currency and the shortage of foreign
exchange with which to prosecute many
projects. As a result of this, many
African nations such as Nigeria does not
find it necessary to extend telecomm
services to the rural areas that cater to
about 70 per cent of the total population
(Ajayi et al., 1995). Consequently, it is
not uncommon to find most residents of
a small village crowded around the only
television set, often powered by a car-
battery or small generators. This is due
to a low standard of living or poverty
among Africans since information
infrastructures are costly. The problems
of funding that face most of Africa’s
information environment has not spared
countries that have been seen as well off
with natural resources. In Botswana
during the 2004/2005 national budget,
for example, the finance minister
announced a reduction in budget for the
University of Botswana and
consequently the University was not
allocated any capital budget to which
the library is attached as an information
institute (Gaolathe, 2004). These
situations have affected library funding.
For example in 1996, a study by the
African Association of Universities
(AAU) established that libraries within
university environments in African had
remained strangely neglected. The
recurrent inadequate financial resources
allocation to information systems and
network development have severely
deterred the use of information to solve
Africa’s socio-economic problems
(Akhtar and Melesse, 1994) which
according to them is due to dwindling
financial resources in Africa.
Under-utilisation of information
infrastructures in Africa
Duffy (2001) wrote that both business
and social entrepreneurs that include
young people are creatively using
information technology to address
community needs and meet global
challenges. In many developing
countries, it is estimated that half of all
capital investment by firms goes into IT
systems but adoption of new technology
is however hampered by a requirement
for new routines and behaviour (Prusak
LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS Number 2 2007
2002). Apart from under utilisation, these
requirements may lead to technological
rejection and non-use. This frequently
results in failure to meet objectives and
frustration on the part of senior managers
and investors. However, understanding
how and why variation occur will help
firms avoid the common and experience
failure witnessed (Rena, 2006).
Conclusion
Based on the foregoing inadequacy
of much of Africa to meet the basic
needs of improving the development of
infrastructure in information and
communication technology, there is the
ongoing need for these issues to be re-
addressed by Africans and see what they
can do before other concerned nations
come in, provide some aid so as to
improve their economic development
and nation building in every facet of their
endeavour. Infrastructure has the
potential to improve the economic
development of Africa in diverse areas
e.g. agriculture, education, environment,
telecommunication/networking, public/
private organisations because
information and communication infra-
structure requires a widespread techno-
logical resources for its operations.
REFERENCES
Adam, L. (1996), African Connectivity,
Problems Solutions and Actions: Some
Recommendations from Inet’ 96, African
Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania,
Addis Ababa, available at: www.africa.
upenn.edu/Global_Comm/afr_inet96.html
(accessed 11 July 2006).
Adeyemi, B.M. (1991), ‘‘Problems and
challenges of automating cataloguing
processes at KDL Library, University of
Ibadan’’, Africa Journal of Library,
Archives and Information Science, Vol. 12
No. 2, pp. 213-22.
Adeyemi, B.M. (1999), ‘‘Making
information technology serves Africa’s
information needs’’, paper presented at a
PADIS Workshop, Tangiers, Morocco,
December.
Adimorah, E.N.O. (1993), Computer
Appreciation in Information Processing,
Lecture Note (unpublished).
Adomi, E.E. (2006), Application of information
and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in
Nigerian High Schools, NLA, Delta State
Chapter AGM, Warri.
LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS Number 2 2007
Ajayi, G.O., Salawu, R.I. and Raji T.I.
(1995), ‘‘Impact of communication in
networking’’, Africa Journal of Library,
Archives and Information Science, Vol. 1
No. 1, pp. 13-21.
Ajayi, G.O., Salawu, R.I. and Raji, T.I.
(1998), ‘‘A century of telecommunications
development in Nigeria – what next?’’,
available at: www.file://paper.html
(accessed 14 December 2006).
Akhtar, S. and Melesse, N. (1994), ‘‘Africa,
information and development: IDRC’s
experience ottawa’’, Journal of Information
Science, Vol. 20 No. 5, pp. 314-22.
British Educational Communications and
Technology Agency (BECTA 2003),
‘‘What the research say about ICT and
Motivation’’, available at: www.becta.org.
UK (accessed 10 June 2006).
Chelley, J. (2001), Information Technologies
Quoted in PATH, available at: www.rho-org/
html/ict (accessed 7 June 2006).
Chisenga, J. (1999), ‘‘Global information
infrastructure and the question of African
content’’, IFLANET, Bangkok, available at:
www.ifla.org/iv/iflats/papers188-116e.htm
(accessed 23 February 2001).
Dede, C. (2000), ‘‘Emerging influences of
information technology on school
curriculum’’, Journal of Curriculum
Studies, Vol. 32, pp. 281-303.
Dot Force, A (2003), ‘‘Information and
communication technologies’’, Journal of
Computer Assisted Learning, Vol. 6 No. 2,
pp. 78-90.
Duffy, T.M. (2001), ‘‘Application of
information technology’’, The Guardian,
28 October, p. 16.
Eadie, G.M. (2001), ‘‘School for the future:
the impact of ICT on schools, classroom
design and curriculum delivery’’, A Study of
Schools in Australia, USA, England and
Hong Kong.
Gaolathe, V. (2004), ‘‘An agenda for
information age: the socio-technical
infrastructure of knowledge dissemination’’,
Journal of Organisational Computing, Vol. 3
No. 2. pp. 135-90.
Ifidon, S.E. (1999), Essentials of African
Universities Library Management, National
Library Press, Lagos.
Mostert, B.J. (2001), ‘‘African public library
system: a literature survey’’, KwaDlangeza:
LIBRESS Library and Information Science
Research Electronic Journal, available at:
http://web doc.sub.giodg.de/doc/aw/libres/
libres11nl/mos tert.htm (accessed 1 October
2001).
National Policy of Education (1992),
Education and Youth Development,
Educational Research Council, Nigeria,
Lagos, p. 8.
Nwosu, K. (2001), Information Technology:
Uses and Preservation of Resources in
Libraries and Information Centers,
Odumatt Press and Publisher, Ibadan,
pp. 52-54.
Nwosu, K. (2003), ‘‘Prospects of digital
libraries in Africa’’, Africa Journal of
Library, Archives and Information Science,
Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 13-21.
Ofsted, B. (2002), ICT in Schools: Effects of
Government Initiative, available at: www.
ofsted.gov.uk/public.doc502/ictinschools.pdf
(accessed 20 May 2006).
Okiy, R.B. (2006), Government Department
Libraries and the Challenge of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICT)
Application for National Development in
Nigeria, NLA, Delta State Chapter AGM,
Warri.
Omekwu, C. (2003), Current Issues in
Accessing Document Published in
Developing Countries, MCB University
Press, Lagos, available at: file://A:Emerald
fulltext-acessDCP_files \P130 \ htm
(accessed 7 July 2003).
Popoola, S.O. (2002), Information and
Development Ibadan: Centre for External
Studies, University of Ibadan, Ibadan.
Prusak, J. (2002), IT Strategies for
Information Management, Butterworths,
London, pp. 5-10.
Rena, R. (2006), ‘‘Factors affecting
technology usage: information technology
and development in Africa – the case of
Eritrea’’, available at: www/fao.org/waicent/
faoinfo/suatdev/cddirect/cdanoo1.html
(accessed 22 November 2006).
Richard M. (2003), ‘‘Balancing technology
with professional value’’, American
Libraries, Vol. 26 No. 7, pp. 6-12.
Sturges, R. and Neil, V. (1998), ‘‘The use of
information technology in documentation
and information centres in Africa’’, Africa
Journal of Library, Archives and
Information Science, Vol. 21 No. 4,
pp. 17-18.
United States Information Infrastructure
Task Force (1994), ‘‘Putting the
information infrastructure to work: a
report of the information infrastructure
task force’s committee on applications
and technology’’, available at:
http://iitfcat.nist.gov:94 (accessed 2 June
2006).
19
 FURTHER READING
Afullo, T.J. (2002), ‘‘Global information
and Africa: the telecommunications
infrastructures for cyberspace’’, Library
Management, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 205-14.
Alemna, A.A. and Antwi, I.K. (2002), ‘‘A
review of consortia building among
University Libraries in Africa’’, Library
Management, Vol. 23 No. 4-5, pp. 234-8.
Anyarelue, F.U. (2006), Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) in
Department Libraries in Government and
Private Sectors, NLA, Delta State Chapter
AGM, Warri.
Awe, J. (2005), Nigeria and the Question of
IT, available at: www.jidaw.com/itsolutions/
itnigeria1.html
Eccles, D. (2006), Information Access,
Efficiency and Quality, available at: www.
engerian.com (accessed 29 November
2006).
Emeagwali, G. (2003), ‘‘African Indigenous
Knowledge Systems (AIK): Implications for
20
the Curriculum’’, in Toyin F. (Ed.), Ghana
in Africa and the World: Essays in Honour
of Adu Boahen, Africa World Press,
New Jersey, available at: www.africa
history.net/AIK.htm (accessed 1 October
2001).
Federal Ministry of Education and Youth
development (1992), Minimal Standards for
ICT in School Libraries, Federal Ministry of
Education, Lagos, p. 8.
Ifidon, S.E. (2006), ‘‘Planning without
Information: The Bane of National
Development’’, The 26th Inaugural
Lecture in Ambrose Ali University,
Ekpoma–Nigeria.
Internet society – Nigeria Chapter (2006),
‘‘Nigeria information infrastructure: a vision
of hope and prosperity’’, available at:
www.file://A:\ paper.htm (accessed 27 June
2006).
Makare, F. (1991), ‘‘National information
and communication infrastructure policy
form-ulation: how to proceed’’, available
at: www/fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/swetdev/
cddirect/cdan001.html (accessed 22
November 2006).
Mutula, S. (2004), IT Diffusion in Sub-
Saharan Africa: Implication for
Development and Managing Digital
Libraries, available at: www. emerald
insight.com/0307-4803htm
Nigeria’s Information Technology and
Telecommunication Resources Center on
the Web, available at: www.jidaw.com/
digitalnigeria.html.
Rosenberg, D. (2003), ‘‘Regional Library
Associations: their role in developing
University Libraries in Africa’’, available at:
www.aca.ac.uk/yearbook/may2003/17-23pdf
(accessed May 2003).
T. Rexwhite Enakrire (enakrire
@yahoo.com) and O. George Onyenania
(onvenaniageorge@yahoo.com) both
studied for their Masters in the
Department of Library and Information
Science, at Delta State University,
Abraka, Delta State, Nigeria.
LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS Number 2 2007