Establishing and managing development networks in Africa : success cases,best practices, and perspectives on AVLIN

Abstract

Networking, whether local, metropolitan, national or regional, is becoming increasingly common among libraries and other information-provision organizations. Networking enables libraries to become integral parts of the organization-wide communication infrastructure. Any part of the organisation that remains outside of this infrastructure may be largely excluded from the formal and informal decision-making systems of the organization. The inability to access national and international networks will certainly complicate the issue of equality of access to information. The main purpose of networks is to facilitate access and utilization of data and information resources of participating institutions. The present focus of networking is on online networks, linking member libraries to computer resources by means of telecommunication connections.