Implications of e-government on information delivery services

Offering services electronically by government and public institutions is now common practice, and the terms ‘e-governance’ ,‘e-government’, ‘e-government services’ and ‘government e-services’ have become increasingly popular. This paper which is a prologue to the study investigating the availability of e-government services to rural KwaZulu Natal sought to explain what these terms mean in relation to e-government service provision in South Africa (SA), concluding with their implications on information delivery services. The paper was guided by observations and a literature review. In summary, users of information delivery services have become accustomed to receiving electronic services from the government through e-government and from business through e-commerce, and as such approach libraries with the same mindset. Undoubtedly, e-government is on the move in South Africa and e-government services are being accessed by citizens. The lessons that information delivery services (and libraries in particular) can draw from e-government services are based on two tenets: i) That e-government services are basically information services, and ii) That governments are responsible for providing quality services to the population. The implications noted in the paper can be grouped into the following categories: technological issues, access issues, service type, time, human skills, connectivity, content issues, media type and promotion issues, among others