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- Project to benefits state`s many rural areas
Project to benefits state`s many rural areas
Posted on 07 November 2016
KUCHING: `Library in the box`, will provide a complementary solution to existing telecentres and bring knowledge and information to many rural areas in
Sarawak and potentially other part of Malaysia.
This `Library in the Box` project is a collaboration between Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology representing Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
(Unimas) and Pustaka Negeri Sarawak which will provide a platform for both parties to work together on utilising ICT i various aspects of library operations and its objectives.
The signig of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Unimas and Pustaka Negeri Sarawak was held at Pustaka in Petra Jaya near here, yesterday.
Speaking on the event was Deputy Vice Chancellor (Reserch & Innovation) of UNIMAS Prof. Dr. Kopli Bujang who said collaboration between the varsity
and external parties was to ensure that Unimas stay in touch with the needs of stakeholders in particular the community with regard to their curriculum
and to utilise their reserch expertise to solve problem in the communities.
"There is no doubt tha ICT plays an important role in the development of our nation and the economy. Our daily life is also dependent o the utilisation of ICT whether at home or at work".
"Thus, there is a great potential with regards to ICT product and service market globally and this is in line with Malaysian government initiative to put greater emphasis on knowledge economy," he said.
Kopli believed that ICT also affected the role and functions of library throughout the world and also at Unimas.
"Rather than just being a physical building that stores information contained in books and documents , the roles of library also include dissemination of digital resources, virtual learning environmet and so on," he added.
Sarawak is a big state and there are still many areas which are categorised under rural areas and lacking accessto basic utilities and also lack of access to information whether in printed or digital format.
Unimas has been actively involved in bridging the digital divide through several initiatives such as a eBario, eLamai, eBakelalan project and so on. Although network and Internet conectivity was provided in these centres, access to digital content sometimes is limited due to drop i connection speed or disconnected service to several factors.
Similarly, although there were many rural library centres through Sarawak, the challenge was to keep the collection updated and also the issues of logistic
and cost in order to bring the printed materialto these remote areas.
"Therefore, the `Library in the Box` project aims at providing offline digital contents such as wikipedia and Khan Academy using low cost portable platform,
the Raspberry Pi computer that will provide a complementary solution to existig telecentres and bring knowledge and information to many rural areas in Sarawak," he explained.
Meanwhile, Board of Directors member of Pustaka Datuk Alfred Yap Chin Loi pointed out that the signing of MoU between the two institutions will definitely benefit the community especially the people of Sarawak.
"I hope this MoU will further enhance the collaboration that is ongoing be it in the applications of technology, education, training or research," he said.