DISTANCE EDUCATION AND THE ROLE OF THE LIBRARY

For reasons of its tested capabilities distance education has been widely accepted and adopted in many institutions across the world. The University of Botswana is an institution that operates a dual-mode educational delivery system in which the conventional system runs alongside its distance education programmes. In its pursuit of distance education the University established an outreach arm, the Centre for Continuing Education, which started with two (certificate & diploma) programmes. The University of Botswana Library (UBL) has the mandate to give necessary support services to all academic programmes of the university, irrespective of the mode of delivery. The UBL among others aims at responding speedily and appropriately to the academic needs and expectations of the students and faculty. This study carries out an investigation into the role and involvement of the library in the provision of distance education at the University of Botswana. The findings and discussions from the research support the hypotheses formulated and provide a concrete base from which conclusions are drawn and recommendations made to all the stakeholders.