Nigerian offline library begins operation
JUNE 9, 2015 : AL JAZEERA

More than 110 million people in Nigeria are still
not connected to the internet largely because of
poor infrastructure and a lack of fiber and mobile
networks make it expensive and unreliable.
But now an ambitious project aims to give
millions of students in the country access to a
vast library of digital content.
But rather than depending on an internet
connection to access it, the project has
developed the resource for offline viewing.
The eGranary Digital Library – also known as
The Internet in a Box – has been developed by a
US-based non-profit called the WiderNet Project.

“It gives me up-to-date information unlike the
normal library, where textbooks sometimes are
outdated,” Abubakar Mohammed, a final year law
student at Ahmadu Bello University, told Al
Jazeera.
“It gives me an opportunity to access libraries
not only in Nigeria but libraries outside.”
The project puts millions of digital documents,
including websites, multimedia and academic
texts, on to a server in a school or university.
This information is then available to local
users at no cost, even when the internet goes
down.
For Zainab Ismail, Islamic law student, the
project means she no longer needs to visit the
university book library.
“[I find] anything I search for,” says Ismail. “It is
fast and works even without a connection. It
helps me a lot before and after classes”
Students are not the only ones to use the
service, which is viewed as especially cost-
effective at a time when funding for education
has been cut.

“Lecturers use it to update themselves, to
conduct research, writing journals and their
projects,” says Ibrahim Barkindo, a teacher at
Ahmadu Bello University.

“Sometimes we read on screen; sometimes we
save some of the pages and print them for later
use.”
Other academics are proving slow to adopt the
new technology, perferring the traditional library
for their research.

“There are some categories of scholars that are
really not too comfortable or not technology-
savvy,” Abdullahi Musa Ibrahim, university
librarian, says.
“Those scholars would rather touch the books,
flip the pages and they feel much more
comfortable.”

The eGranary project also lets readers upload
and edit local material, allowing them to create
and edit their own websites, which are stored
locally.

The founders are also working in expanding
access by putting the library onto a small chip.
This will allow it to be taken anywhere and is
likely to further boost its popularity.

Edwardhead:
SAI BUHARI
CHANGE DON LAND

Edwardhead:
SAI BUHARI
CHANGE DON LAND