IT diffusion in Sub‐Saharan Africa: implications for developing and managing digital libraries

This paper is a spin off of a keynote address that was delivered by the author at the IFLA‐Africa section workshop on “developing and managing digital libraries” that was held in Gaborone Botswana from 23‐27 February 2004. The author points out that libraries in Sub‐Saharan Africa like their counterparts in the rest of the world are continuing to experience a period of rapid change as they prepare to participate in the global information society. In this endeavour, the libraries face various challenges of economic, technological, content, and information literacy nature. In a global information society, there is need to democratize access to information using ICTs, provide adequate and relevant local content to users and equip them with requisite information literacy skills to efficiently find their way in a maze of information networks. This paper discusses the patterns of ICTs diffusion within libraries in Sub‐Saharan Africa and the implications for the development and management of digital libraries.