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{
    "id": 1051580,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1051580/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 143,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Bondo, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Gideon Ochanda",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1264,
        "legal_name": "Gideon Ochanda Ogolla",
        "slug": "gideon-ochanda-ogolla"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. Having been to school, I cannot fault anything to do with a library. However, this is one area where a lot needs to be done at the moment. If we do things the very old way on how library services have been run, then we are headed to a direction that might not be very helpful in the country. First, libraries were more useful when we used to associate them with having a place or a center where students would go and read or a place where people would go and pick information. This has changed over time and if we really want to understand, we must check. Now that we have libraries in schools, there is a proper target because students are there. They have time to be in those libraries and they get what they are looking for. In fact, it is mostly not easy to get a student looking for any other manner of information. They would go for their content, look at what could be brought in exams based on the subjects they were doing in the schools and that were it. After they are done with the schools at whatever level, they had nothing to do with the library. This is the most painful thing and so, if we still want to go the old way of doing things by constructing libraries everywhere in every county, then something needs to be checked in terms of whom we are targeting with those libraries. I do not think the target is any more students. It must be somebody else, either who has finished school or is looking for information. Can we define that target that we are doing the library for? Otherwise, the libraries are going to be empty. They will not be offering any service that is useful. What is it that we will store there? What is this that will be pulling people to them? What would, for example, attract me into a library in Bondo as I come from my village which is about 40 kilometers away? What would be the drive? The Kenya National Library Services (KNLS) must get that drive defined and must get it right. Otherwise, as we do this, we will be talking of services; we will be using resources and they will not be used the way they should. It is very clear in schools but not outside there. It lacks clarity. In churches or mosques, people are very obedient and faithful. They go and study their holy books even once in a week. Who are we targeting with those libraries? That takes me to where I am trying to bring in some suggestions that the library boards must now be very clear in terms of what they want. Are we able to cross-match library services with other services offered by the Government or merge them with archives, museums and Huduma Centres? If we did this, then the direction we are taking about libraries will make a lot more sense. This is because one will not be going there according to the idea we have. Anybody who has been to school in this country knows very well that, if you are looking for proper information, you will not go to a public library because you will not get it. If that is still what we want to do, then we must reorganise this and check it again."
}