ZAOU students and staff will now have access to an e-library which is an on-line library providing 24 hours access to books and journals through-out the year, Director of the Information Technology (IT) Department Mr. Masiye Banda has revealed.

Mr. Banda said this has been made possible by a donation of the e-library by the University of Zambia (UNZA).
Mr. Banda explained that in order to host the digital materials ZAOU now needs a big server.
“There are many advantages of the e-library which include the fact that many students can read the same book at the same time unlike hard copies of books which can only be accessed when they are physically available in the library and usually there are limited copies”.
“The other advantage is that the e-library is available throughout the year and at anytime,” he said. Mr. Banda further explained that for students and staff to access the e-library, they have to go to the library site to which the University subscribes.
“Users will be given account numbers and passwords. It works in the same way they use the module which is the ZAOU e-learning platform.” he said.
One of the world’s largest on-line library is Questia, which offers the world’s largest on-line collection of complete books, journals and articles.
It also offers high quality scholarly content from over 300 acclaimed publishers, unlimited use of the books and articles in the collection by multiple users, tools to write notes in the margins and highlight passages as in actual books and also has, tools to create footnotes and bibliographies across titles.