The government of Kenya has announced plans to construct a national virtual library. President Uhuru Kenyatta made the announcement and said that Sh 150m will be invested in the project.
The virtual library will be an online expansion of the Kenya National Library. According to the President, it will offer Kenyans access to a wide variety of information housed by the KNLS. It will have of 15 million publications. The project which will be implemented by the Ministry of Sports, Culture, and Heritage, in collaboration with the Sports, Arts and Social Development Fund, will be launched by June 2021.
Phase one will digitize 800,000 books, periodicals, research papers, and government publications. It will also contain 600,000 e-books, which are currently accessible offline through e-readers across 63 KNLS branches countrywide
โThe elaborate ICT infrastructure within the facility will facilitate community access to online information and connect them to the rest of the world,โ said the Head of State.
Maktaba Kuu building
President Kenyatta spoke during the opening ceremony of the new ultra-modern Maktaba Kuu building which houses the Kenya National Library Service headquarters. The library building features a 300 capacity children theatre, a 50-capacity senior citizens section and four auditoriums with a combined capacity of 1,200 people tailored to provide spaces for local authors and artists to showcase their work.
It also has 500-seater gallery dubbed Sanaa Centre which is available to local artists to showcase their artefacts. It has a section for persons with disability where books and other material are available in different formats including Braille, audiobooks and large print formats. The President challenged national and county leaders to ensure that libraries as information resource centres are strategically integrated into their development agenda.
