Governor Godswill Akpabio

Emma Okonji

Akwa Ibom State Commissioner of Information and Communications, Aniekan Umanah has stated that the state e-Library would enhance knowledge economy for the state and the entire country, given its installed facilities.

Umanah made the disclosure while conducting ICT Journalists around the e-Library premises covering a distance of 41,000 square metres. The e-Library itself is a four story building, with basement, seating on 4,000 square metres, and was commissioned by President Goodluck Jonathan in June 2012.

According to him, “The e-Library itself is located on three floors with laptops connected on elevated platform, with all cables passed under the elevated floors such that they are not seen physically by people who make use of the library.
There are 350 installed computers on each of the three floors housing the e-Library and there are no physical books in them, but computers all through, to access the 35 million electronic books in the library,” Umanah said, adding that aside the electronic books, the library has over 40, 000 hard copies of books that are catalogued in motorised shelves.

The library has Radio Frequency Identification Readers (RFID) for security checks, such that every book that has been catalogued with RFID in the library cannot be removed without authorisation. It becomes difficult to steal books that have been catalogued.

It has internet speed of 3 megabytes per second and downlink is 5 megabytes per second such that people could download 1gigbyte data in 5 seconds.
Some of the features of the library include e-Library, Smart Classroom, Children Library, Pre-school Library, Language Laboratory, Reading Section for the Elderly, among others.

The Smart Classroom accommodates training programmes for government officials, corporate staff and students. They could be in the smart class room receiving lecture or taking exam, while their lecturer or examiner may be located in far away distance in another country and they could communicate live with him or her.
The Children library session has computer laptops that are connected wirelessly and the children have access to the laptops to do their assignments with the aid of someone. There are also the reading and story-telling sections within the children library. There are games, television and graphic designs that will keep the children busy always.

The pre-school library is well equipped with baby toys, games, television and cartoons that keep pre-school ever busy.
The Language Laboratory has the capacity to operate in five foreign languages and local languages.

It has a waiting lounge where people could sit and relax with coffee while waiting to use the smart classroom or while resting after reading for some hours. There is also a canteen where people could eat and get refreshed.
Umanah further explained that the centre has two mobile libraries, with plans to have 31 of such in each local government area of the state.
The mobile library is a mobile truck with installed computers that are connected to the internet, providing internet based services on the move.