American University of Nigeria (AUN) has announced plans to launch its ultra modern library by next May to serve as a model for using technology innovation to make learning more efficient and accessible.[blockquote right=”pull-right” cite=”AUN”]“smart library is basically like a smart phone. It’s multi-functional, efficient, has more services and because it deals with e-resources, it doesn’t require as much space. Instead, we have space to add more services that were once taken up by hardcopy books, resulting in greater efficiency and effectiveness.”[/blockquote]
Founded by Atiku Abubakar, ex-Vice President of Nigeria, the award-winning university say that under the plan, about 210,000 e-books and e-journals, accessed using tablets, e-readers and other devices and available to students and faculty 24/7 regardless of location.
AUN adds that its e-book collection is not only Africa’s largest but also significantly larger than that held by most universities in America.
”While the new library will not be the biggest university library in the world, it will among be the smartest”, Margee Ensign, President of AUN says. ”Here in Nigeria we cannot just focus on traditional education. To make education accessible and less expensive, it has to be about technology.”
According to AUN’s Amed Demirhan, director of Library Services, “the new home for the AUN’s library will advance the application of information technology to organizational structure, space and collection.”
Demirhan, who started the first digital library in the University of Kurdistan, Iraq, explains that AUN’s “smart library is basically like a smart phone. It’s multi-functional, efficient, has more services and because it deals with e-resources, it doesn’t require as much space. Instead, we have space to add more services that were once taken up by hardcopy books, resulting in greater efficiency and effectiveness.”
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