Regional Activities: Asia and Oceania Section

Workshop on Digital Divide, 2 March 2003, Sri Lanka

The IFLA Regional Section for Asia and Oceania Standing Committee held its Mid-Conference meeting in Sri Lanka from 3 -5 March 2003. In conjunction with the meeting the Sri Lanka Library Association with the cooperation of the Regional Standing Committee organised a one day workshop on "Bridging the Digital Divide."

This workshop, attended by 30 librarians was held at the Conference hall of Hotel Janaki in Colombo and was graced by the presence of Mr. N.U. Yapa, President , Sri Lanka Library Association, Mr. Tony O' Brian, Director, British Council, Sri Lanka and Mr. Mahinda Abeywardane, Secretary General, UNESCO National Commision for Sri Lanka who was the chief guest.

1. The Digital Divide - Access and Literacy
   by Prof. G.E. Gorman, Victoria University of Wellington
   Prof. Gorman spoke about the components of the digital divide - access to computers, access to the means to use the computers, and the literacy divide with its many gradations. He also discussed how libraries and librarians are in an ideal position to help bridge this digital divide.
2. Bringing the Digital Divide: The University of the South Pacific Library's Efforts
   by Elizabeth Reade Fong, University of South Pacific Library
   She spoke about the initiatives taken by the USP library to provide information skills training to the academic staff. She also spoke about the digitisation project to support the University's distance and flexible traning learning programme.
3. Bridging the Digital Divide: The Malaysian Experience
   by Rashidah Begum Bt.Fazal Mohamed, Chair IFLA/RSCAO
   Rashidah's presentation was a "from conception to delivery to raising a kid" of consortia efforts in Malaysia. She spoke about the evolution of the Malaysian Digital Library Project, the Academic Libraries Consortium and the Penang Libraries Network and their future plans to harmonise consortia efforts in cooperation with other non-library agencies such as the government and ICT companies.
4. e-Sri Lanka and access - The Vishwa Grama Programme
   by Rohan Samarajiva, Public Interest Programme Unit of Ministries of Policy Development & Economic Reform
   Rohan spoke about the Sri Lanka government's very well thought out plans for a national ICT infrastructure that would be cost effective, sustainable and affordable and the telecentre project.
5. The Current Status and Future Development of CALIS
   by Zhu Ziang, Centre for CALIS, Peking University Library
   Zhu shared with participants the experiences of the China Academic Library & In formation System(CALIS) that has allowed libraries to share a larger number of commercial databases and locally developed databases such as Chinese Disserataions and Proceedings Abstracts.

At the end of the presentations alparticipants were divided into 6 groups to discuss issues related to the digital divide in Sri Lanka and in the region. and make their presentations.

I am very pleased to inform you that our Sri Lankan hosts have put all the presentations online at
http://www.nsf.ac.lk/slla/papers.htm

Report prepared by:
Rashidah Begum
Chair