Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every walk of life: business, government, daily wage earners, hawkers, academia and librarians. As the disease sweeps the globe, homebound workers, students, teachers everywhere are turning to digital platforms such as video-conferencing, online teaching and self-services. One effect of this is that the digital divide is widening in developing countries, particularly in Africa. It is a challenge and a cause of anxiety for educators and librarians to shift to online teaching, learning and dissemination of information. An educator's mandates are teaching, learning and research and a librarian's first and foremost duty to society is to make authentic and reliable knowledge available to the community. As the COVID-19 crisis rages on, it has become critical to enable those who have limited access to knowledge to access the relevant information so that they can safeguard themselves against harm. This chapter gives an educator's and a librarian's perspective of the impact of pandemicrelated measures on the digital divides in Africa, with particular emphasis on Botswana.

Keywords:Digital divide, Africa, COVID-19, pandemic, University of Botswana, librarians, digital literacy, library school.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed extreme hardships on humankind in various facets of our lives, changing virtually every aspect of our lives ranging from the way we shop, learn, teach or communicate to how we offer services. libraries, the pandemic has proved to us that change is inevitable and that without change we can never be challenged to be innovative and serve our clients better. It has therefore become imperative for libraries and librarians to be the agents and drivers of change and offer services to their patrons that will ensure safe and equitable access to information. Open educational resources, open access to information, fair use of information and open institutional repositories have become familiar terms meant to encourage the free use and openness of resources without the many barriers brought on by copyright and licensing restrictions. The use of Creative Commons rights for licensing information resources for openness and sharing of information is now considered more than ever before, as the ‘new normal’ continues to widen further the already existing gap between the haves and the have-nots.