A digital library for Margret Trowel School of Industrial and Fine Art, College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology of Makerere University, Kampala

Abstract

The project aimed at the development of a digital library for Margret Trowel School of Industrial and Fine Arts library. The was achieved with the objectives to; examine the existing system for accessing information resources, identify the requirements for designing a digital library, design a digital library and implement, test and validate the developed digital library for Margret Trowel School of Industrial and Fine art. The qualitative approach was employed and a case study project design was secondhand. Interviewing was the data collection method used in this project which led to the use of an interview guide a data collection instrument. The sample size was 27 participants which was obtained with the application of the data saturation principle. Findings revealed that MTSIFA library use is still lacking due determinates like due assignments, course work and examination that determine Users habit to use the library, moderate level of service delivery which consumes a lot of time to access materials, lack of awareness of the existing electronic services such as OPAC and electronic resources provided to foster the open shelf policy of the library. Challenges like inadequate ICT knowledge, insufficient funds, poor information retrieval skills, lack of information literacy skills, lack of awareness of the ICT facilities and miss shelving were identified as hindering the library user’s access to library resources. There were also reports that covid-19 greatly affected both library users and staff in accessing information materials and delivery respectively. There was an overwhelming support for the need of digitizing the library collection as a way to increase access and utilization of library resources. The roles played by digital libraries were also identified, the use requirements which led to the designing of a digital library for MTSIFA library with the help of Unified Modelling Language which later saw the implementation of a digital library Green Stone free open source software.