National Information and Communication Technology Policy and Digital Era School Librarianship in Botswana

摘要

School librarianship has advanced in the digital era to encompass interactivity, connectivity, and access to a wide variety of information in different formats, through the capabilities of information and communication technologies. School libraries exist to support learning in schools and the importance of the digital age in student's learning cannot be overstated. Today's students are born in the age of technology; therefore a school library that does not encompass the use of electronic media will not meet the needs of the digital generation. The purpose of this article is to find out the status of technology diffusion and use in Botswana school libraries and to advance reasons for the lack of information and communication technology uptake in school libraries. A document analysis of literature was done to determine the factors that hinder the growth of school librarianship in Botswana during the digital era, using the stakeholder theory as a lens for the investigation. Findings reveal a weakness in the social, political, and economic areas of leadership in national information policies which seem to be a remnant from the beginning of the digital age in Botswana and indeed in most African countries. Some of the recommendations point to using the stakeholder theory to tackle the hurdles in school librarianship leadership and policy in the information age.