Freedom of Information: The Act, Ideal and Practice (Published)
A Government’s commitment to openness is its ability to avail public information to citizens. In this regard Governments are expected to release information to facilitate public participation in policy formulation, decision-making and service delivery. Against this background the Government of Sierra Leone in 2013 passed the Right to Access Information Act for the disclosure of information held by public authorities or by persons providing services. Invariably this article critically examined this Right to Access Information Act in relation to constitutional provision, its relation to other international FOI Acts, the importance of information as a natural resource and how it is accessed, the value of records keeping in ensuring freedom of information as inseparable entities, and its pitfalls.
Keywords: Information, Information Management, Sierra Leone, access to information, information provision, information services
An Empirical study of Librarians and Libraries as drivers of access to Knowledge in Ebonyi State, Nigeria (Published)
The library from inception plays a very crucial role in the extension and modification of knowledge. The growing need for knowledge management has influenced every component and operation of a library. This is built on the fact that it is only by transmission of knowledge by each succeeding generation can civilization maintain itself and make advance upon the knowledge of the past. The individual and social meaning of education can only take place on the backdrop of beliefs and values of a particular social setting. In both, the library has a crucial role to play. The library we know is a social system that stores and disseminates information which is knowledge. This paper therefore is an empirical study of Librarians and libraries as drivers of access to knowledge using Ebonyi State, Nigeria as a case in point. This researcher applied a descriptive study method with a sampled population of 138 randomly selected from the different libraries in the State. The study investigated ways through which librarians and libraries operate as drivers of access to knowledge as well as the various challenges encountered by librarians that militate against their optimal performance as drivers of access to knowledge. The study also identified ways of enhancing the role of Librarians and libraries as drivers of access to knowledge. The instrument for the study was structured according to the modified Likert scale on four point rating scale. On this scale, the average mean cut off is 2.50. To this end, an item is accepted if it is 2.50 and above and rejected if it is below 2.50. Statistically, frequencies, percentages and mean scores were used to compute the data collected that led to the decision rule.
Keywords: Human development, Information and Communication Technology, Knowledge, Library, access to information, librarian