Libraries as Portal for Knowledge Driven Rural Community Development Cases from Botswana

Rebecca Lekoko (University of Botswana, Botswana), Josephine Modise-Jankie (University of Botswana, Botswana), and Christopher Busang (University of Botswana, Botswana)
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 41
EISBN13: 9781466602151|DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-117-1.ch004
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Abstract

Realizing that the rural communities lag behind with information that can help improve their lives, the government has set up the Rural Communication Program (RCP) with a goal “to provide telecommunications services to the rural areas in the most cost effective, efficient, logical and transparent manner possible” (Ministry of Communication Science and Technology, 2006, p. 14). Among specific objectives of the Rural Communications Program (RCP) is using appropriate technology to provide services, and in this case, the Internet or computers have been used to augment information found in local libraries. The Botswana Long Term Vision 2016 stipulates as a challenge the need to ensure that all people in Botswana especially those in the rural areas or those who need special assistance, receive the same benefits, and achieve their maximum potential, and RCP is the main foundation on which efforts for availing information that reaches the rural communities are based. Rural here refers to isolated and poorly served communities. These are communities where the government has identified that essential and basic services are required as part of its social obligation and mandate to integrate these areas into economic and social development of the nation. While these communities are of interest in this chapter, the chapter draws some cases from urban places because Internet connectivity in the rural areas of Botswana is still a problem.
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