Executive Director of the Ghana Library Authority (GhLA), Hayford Siaw says the Covid-19 pandemic has reduced the number of visits to libraries.

Hayford Siaw in an interview with JoyNews’ Fostina Sarfo, said the virus has forced the Authority to aggressively pursue its digital strategy of uploading more local content on the Library’s Digital App.

“We are aggressively pursuing or digital strategy, so we are enhancing our digital library platform through sponsorship by the Education Ministry.

“We are still calling for more content, so if you are a Ghanaian author and you want your book to be published on our platform we are ready to purchase them.”

According to him, the Authority is also in talks with the Ghana Education Service (GES), to get videos and audios of curricula related tutorials, which will be made accessible on Authority’s mobile app.

For those in rural Ghana who may not have access to internet connectivity, Mr Siaw said his outfit has received funding from the Ministry of Education to upload its content offline.

“In communities where they do not have internet connectivity or difficulty accessing mobile networks, we are putting most of our content offline.

“On a Raspberry Pi, it will broadcast on our mobile vans, so children in these areas can listen to the lessons.

“Work is currently ongoing for us to be able to deploy it and the resources has been made available by the Education Ministry.”

The Authority in partnership with the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL), has also secured scholarship slots for 1000 Ghanaians on Coursera, an online learning platform.

Mr Siaw said the scholarship is “to encourage Ghanaians to learn from home as the world fights the novel coronavirus pandemic.”