Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Abstract
The girl child in times past has suffered marginalization due to the patriarchal sentiment that is pervasive in the society most especially in the developing countries. However, a ray of hope has shone on them as more voices of advocacy have risen to defend and project the value of a girl child towards societal development and the need to empower this class of gender for sustainable development. Technology is a great enabler for the empowerment of the girl-child, however, there are still traces of inadequate of opportunities, skills and the fear of discrimination which serve as stumbling block to the use of digital media and tools for information access and utilization. The paper looked into the marginalization of the girl child, the importance of empowering them and how the academic libraries through their myriads of services and resources can help make them digitally literate. The work relied solely on literature review through document analysis to meet for the research objectives. The general objective of the study is to see how academic libraries can empower the girl-child through digital media literacy skill. It was found out that intervention initiative to help empower the girl child is widely done by Non-Governmental Organisation. Gleaning from the review of literature, not so much has been done by academic libraries towards the achievement of the goal five of the Social Development Goals (SDGs)- gender equality. Thus, the study recommended that academic libraries should collaborate with other development agencies, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) for all gender empowerment initiatives, particularly ICT training programs.