Students urged to patronize libraries

The Vice Chancellor of the Christian Service University (CSU) in Kumasi, Professor Sam K Afrane, has urged students of the university as well as Ghanaian students to make good use of the various libraries for their academic excellence.

Underscoring the importance of the library, Prof. Sam Afrane described library as the centre of academic work, source of information and resources where one draws from enhancing knowledge in the university settings.

The CSU Vice Chancellor said this during media engagement to celebrate the University’s library ( Chapman Library) month long celebration aimed at creating awareness for the students to make good use of the library.

Under the theme; “Beyond the Bookshelves : Exploring New Horizons in Libraries,” the month-long celebration scheduled from March 3 to March 28 also aims to promote library engagement through various activities, such as Library Evangelism, media engagements, book fair & Fun Activities, debates, seminars, and library giveaways.

According to him, the library month is very important as it offers the entire university community the opportunity to focus on library activities for that period.

“Library is such a facility that if one is not careful, very few people will benefit from its immense benefits, therefore the idea planted to take the library to the people and not just sit down and wait for the students to enter the library to use it is very laudable,” he stated.

“I want to commend head of the library , Vivian Amponsah and her team for this innovation, given birth to a very innovative idea of devoting one whole month to talk about the library and bringing it to the doorsteps of the students and staff. Library plays a very critical central role to the university’s activities, and we cherish it so much,” he added.

He also commended the creativity and sense of initiative of Vivian Amponsah, for bringing this idea on board and working hard with her staff to sell this idea to the university campus.
Prof. K Afrane was optimistic that by the end of the month -long celebration, a good number of the students and staff, will know more about the Chapman Library. Not only knowing about the Chapman Library but what is in there, which they are not aware of in terms of online resources, databases, and other things.

The Pro Vice Chancellor of CSU, Dr Stephen Banahene, in his succinct remarks stated that the Chapman Library is the hub of the academic resources which offers the academic needs of the faculties, students and the entire university.

He stated that, making materials available virtually and also improving the stock the library was a major challenge for the university.

“We want to be available to our students both online and in house and we want to provide them conducive library environment such that our readers who come around will find what they want because knowledge keep increasing and we hope to partner relevant institutions and individuals to be able to make our library the best so that we can continuously help our teaching and learning processes,” he concluded.

Vivian Ampnsah, on her part, said, the initiative seeks to institutionalize Library Month as an annual tradition at the University, to reinforce CSU’s commitment to academic excellence, research and knowledge-sharing.

“It is a maiden month celebration, and we have chosen the theme; “Beyond the Bookshelves: Exploring New Horizon in Libraries. It is all about telling our users that libraries have progressed from being custodian of textbooks but now providing services online and then physical, so we want our various users to know that libraries can serve them wherever they find themselves,” she explained.

She continued, “We want them to know that libraries are not just an institution neither a facility but library is virtual, library is online and can be integrated wherever one finds himself.”

She enumerated activities lined up for the celebration as Library evangelism, media engagement, book fair/ fun activities, debate, seminar and library giveaways, where the Chapman Library will be preached to the students at the various classrooms and shuttles as well as at the student hostels.

The book fair will also see some authors interacting with users, followed by fun activities like painting , drawing, paper cutting and games like chess, scrubbles.

On Wednesday 26th March, there will be a debate on an academic discourse between students and on Thursday 27th March there will be a seminar where speakers will speak on the month-long theme and other activities before the celebration ends.

“We want our users to know that they can access the library online and in house as well. People have this mentality that the library is only a physical building where people can just walk in but then we want to tell them that even while at home or remotely we can provide good services for you to enhance their academic journey and to also inculcate the reading culture of our users and then faculty members,” Ms. Amponsah reiterated.

She called on philanthropists, organisation and well- meaning individuals to support the library. “We want to change our lighting system to a better one. We also want to have a state of the art discussion arena and a research commons for the university so we are pleading to anyone for assistance and we believe this will help our youth, our community and the nation to also improve in their reading culture and also to know that libraries are there to help in development,” she added.