Public librarians who have completed training-of-trainers programmes organized by the EIFL Public Library Innovation Programme (EIFL-PLIP) team and partners in Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Uganda and Zambia are invited to attend this informal knowledge-sharing event - a ‘T-break’, where T stands for trainers - on the topic, Digital reading. 

Digital reading is defined as reading digital texts, for example, an e-book or article, using an electronic device like an e-book reader, smartphone or tablet computer. More and more libraries are introducing e-book lending and literacy programmes built around digital content and applications. 

Guest speaker Jeff Nyoka, eLearning Manager of Johannesburg City Libraries in South Africa, will speak about his library’s ‘Reading with Technology’ initiatives for children and youth, which offers activities based on Google’s ReadAlong App and African Storybook and African StoryMaker Apps, read aloud activities using tablet computers, a ‘MobiReadathon’ for high school students and creative writing programmes.

The aim of the T-breaks is to refresh the trainers’ knowledge, share practical experiences and to build a local and cross-border support network of public library trainers. Since 2017, EIFL has trained 92 public librarians in Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Uganda and Zambia to become trainers, and they have cascaded the training to hundreds of librarians and thousands of users in their countries.