For teacher education to be successful, functional and effective, it must be backed up by a good functional library, where informational materials stocked are capable of helping both teachers and students to be able to retrieve needed information that will fit their teaching/learning and research at any given time.

Libraries have always been considered as storehouses of ideas, creativity and learning.  This is mainly because they provide a vast amount of information and have become ideal centers of learning, especially in schools and institutions of higher education. To some, however, these ‘centers of learning’ are seemingly less than adequate to meet the ever-growing needs of its users today. So this begs the question, how do we pull the library out of the dark ages and into the future?

User-Friendly Libraries
More often than not, libraries today are either struggling with stocking more relevant materials for the users or users are struggling to find the materials they need within the library. This not only points to a lack in organisation within the library but also limited materials and information sources.

Through a study visit organised by Enabel under the Teacher Training Education project, 15 librarian staff from National Teachers’ Colleges take a journey that will provide them with the insight to improve their library services and make their libraries more user-friendly for their students and staff.

Among the libraries selected is Kyambogo University library and the Health Tutors’ College (HTC) Mulago library. Kyambogo University library is one of the key actors in the Teacher Training in Uganda and has a wealth of experience when it comes to sharing how they manage to successfully manage their library while HTC Mulago on the other hand, is one of the beneficiaries of the TTE project in the first phase and received support in terms of infrastructure and equipment. The library has two discussion rooms, enough reading space, server room, computer laboratory. It also has staff space, wireless internet, up-to-date reference materials and enough furniture which could all work as motivational factors to encourage tutor students to use the library to realize effective teaching, learning and research.  

Lessons Learned

Organization the book collections

During their visit, the librarians learnt from the two libraries how they organise their book collections. This is quite important because it makes it easier for the students to locate the books they need in the shortest amount of time. Creating organised book sections, having and book sections within library and occasionally displaying different categories of books is one of the ways to get students to access information and use the libraries more often.

Using ICT

One of the important factors in enhancing the use of libraries is the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). ICT has increasingly become an integral part of today’s educational system. Integrating ICT within the library will contribute immensely to the performance of librarians in carrying out their duties such as cataloguing, referencing services, circulation management and serials control.

The study visit exposed the librarians to the KOHA library management system used to organise book collections in the library. The open source software provides a user’s perspective that allows the user to easily search for appropriate resources or authors, look at available resources within the library and view and manage the books they borrow. On the other hand, the software also provides a management interface where the librarian can easily have an overview of the user in the library, the books borrowed and the entire collection of books within the library.

Currently Enabel is working on training all library staff and installing KOHA software in all 5 NTC libraries (Muni, Unyama, Mubende, Kaliro and Kabale) in order to enhance the role of libraries in teacher education.