Provincial Minister for Education Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan has sought data of libraries of all public educational institutions to the province. This step is aimed at identifying the institutions having computer labs for setting up digital libraries.
The provincial minister has given ten days to schools education, higher education, local government, Punjab Information Technology Board and the archives and libraries Departments for submitting detailed report in this regard. Content Committee and Implementation Committee have also been constituted for setting up digital libraries.
He was presiding over a meeting with regard to establishment of digital libraries today. Punjab Higher Education Commission Chairman Dr. Nizam ud Din, Dr. Muhammad Ramzan, DG Sports, officers of Education Department and representative of British Council, Muhammad Ali, also attended the meeting.
Addressing the meeting, Rana Mashhood said that departments should also mention the number of people benefitting from libraries in their reports. He said that in the light of the agreement with University of London, British council is assisting the go for establishing digital libraries in Punjab.
The education minister said that selected libraries will be linked with educational institutions of UK and other countries through class connecting and British Council will help us in this regard. He said that the facility of studying books available on computer is being provided through hot spots in existing libraries in the educational institutions and setting up mobile libraries in Punjab. He said that these hot spots will be set up in the parks under the control of PHA.
Rana Mashhood told that a model library is also being set up in every sports complex for providing facility of reading to the spectators and the players coming in existing sports complexes in different cities of the province.
He told that under the first phase, 13 such libraries are in the final stages of completion. The meeting was told that under the control of Local Government Department, 50 public libraries exist in the province and that all necessary steps are being taken for converting these libraries into digital libraries.
