Designing a plan for digitisation of Library materials at Uganda National Meteorological Authority, Luzira

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to design a plan for digitizing Library materials at Uganda National Meteorological Authority. These centers are profoundly found with valuable and old data in many forms and formats. The purpose of this study was to assess the digitisation of Library materials of the Uganda National Meteorological(UNLM) Library and the objectives of the study were to assess establish the current status of digitisation of library resource, the management of library materials, the challenges faced in digitizing library materials and later designing a plan for digitizing library materials. The study was conducted from June to August, 2019 at the UNMA headquarters in Luzira. The Authority employs a population of about 198 staff, however only (5) five were purposively sampled and these included the ICT manager, data manager, DTR manager, data analyst and the librarian. These respondents were interviewed on key facts, practices and their role in digitization of library materials, and this was supplemented with the researcher’s observations on how digitization was carried out. The major findings from the study are that currently the UNMA library has an existing collection of 10,000 library materials that are in print form accessed as journals, magazines, Atlases and climate data-sets and also rolls of films. Most of these library materials range between1970 to 2003 and can only be retrieved manually from boxes and shelves. The existing digitization practices maintained at the center are more focused on small incoming volumes of climate data to suit the available ICT resource equipment of a single scanner, photocopier and computers. The researcher therefore recommends that for an increasing demand of library materials for the general public and the scientific community, the UNMA should consider increasing its budget for the digitization of its old library materials, while continuously making user satisfaction surveys of the disseminated library materials and establishment of an efficient and effective tracking system for these climate data-sets.