World Libraries

Rural librarian outside community reading room in Ethiopia.

Community libraries are emerging in rural and underdeveloped countries as a key strategy in strengthening literacy, knowledge, education and job growth for the local people. A shift towards reading for passion, for interest, for education is beginning to take hold. Parties working towards this end include government agencies, NGOs, municipalities, universities, business and technology companies (Tamakloe, 2014). In these under-served countries of poverty, literacy rates are very low, the lowest in the world - particularly among girls. Literacy education is being used as a tool to break the poverty cycle that has continually and cyclically plagued the people of these regions.

Gone, for the most part, are the days of passing along our used and tattered books to the less privileged (although this still happens, many are making aims at moving away from this model). Organizations, such as those listed here (source link), are a few of the groups now working to meet the individual needs of communities in a variety of ways including, meaningful book collections, local librarianship training, local publishing and ICT resources and training.

Rural book collections are now being put together by organizations, such as Code Ethiopia and African Storybook Project (ASP), in an effort to provide meaningful, quality books, which meet the immense need of under-served rural people. These provisions are quality resources that the community members can relate to, and which meet their educational and cultural needs. Local language publications are necessary in these communities, as many of the indigenous people living in these impoverished areas are not yet literate in their local language, thus exemplifying the demand for tailored materials, not the used English books that have been historically donated. Check out this video about project READ (Rural Education and Development) in Mongolia. They are supporting schools by providing more books and professional development training to the teachers and school networks. You will see students reading big books in their own language, writing their own narratives and stories through little books (books about farming, berry picking and cultural recipes). 

Work is also being done to train local community librarians. These librarians are being taught to find creative ways of bringing children and families into the community libraries, thus building a strong local center where everyone can access and benefit from the resources. Ideally, as is happening with library initiatives in Ethiopia, these community members are being trained to gather local information so that they can build up a resource of stories and materials that are relevant to the community. Libraries, when established in this manner, are then seen as community education centres, and spanning multiple generations within the same community (Momodu, 2012).

Local publishing is yet another focus by NGOs and other organizations, as a means of bringing prosperity and stability to under-served rural areas of the world. Local publishing works to promote a culture of writers, illustrators, and editors within their own society. It creates jobs, facilitates literacy and ultimately promotes literacy as an educational tool in the advancement of peoples’ health and welfare. Several organizations that are currently working to support and establish local publishing facilities include the Osu Children's Library Fund and Code Ethiopia (video of Code's learning environments below).

A community information center in Kenya.

People in rural and poor communities of the world are the least likely to have access to the Internet. This lack of access equates to lack of opportunity. The Internet has many beneficial and life-changing applications. It benefits poor people by “removing social, economic and geographic isolation, by increasing access to information and education and by enabling poor people to participate in decision-making (Ranga, M. & Pradhan, P, 2014).” Through the Internet, people of rural communities learn new techniques for their trade (often farming), research important health issues, and gain the necessary ICT skills to meet educational standards (Gates, 2015). Internet access provides opportunities that are recognized as so important to individual and community development that a 2011 report to the United Nations Human Rights Council by the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression declared Internet access to be a “fundamental enabler of human rights.” (Gates, 2015). Multiple governments have now formally recognized Internet access as a human right, including Costa Rica, Estonia, Finland, France, and Greece, and Spain. The Internet is now seen by many as a necessary tool of 21st Century life (Gates, 2015). “There is tremendous potential of rural libraries bridging the digital divide” (Ranga, M. & Pradhan, P, 2014), as they play an integral role in providing Internet access and are often the only place, if any, where people in rural communities can access information and the Internet (Gates 2015).

As important as Internet access is, even when in place, it poses challenges to both those facilitating and rural community members. A variety of common factors can hinder access, including lack of electricity, lack of reliable connections, and the fact that technology becomes obsolete quickly. The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative (video below), was scheduled to deliver 10 000 laptops to under-developed communities in Ghana in 2009. The goal was that every school-going child was to receive a laptop which would be owned by that child. The same year, distribution was halted due to many rural areas lacking electricity. The program was then suspended until implementation of electricity to those schools (Agbenyo, 2010). 

Mobile Library Units are another way of providing rural and impoverished communities with Internet access. Momodu (2012) highlights the need for mobile library units, pointing out that such library services are necessary for bringing library services to the doorsteps of farmers in rural areas. Volta Regional library, supported by EIFL-Public Library Innovation Program in Africa, has provided mobile library ICT services since 2010. They travel to multiple rural schools in a van equipped with solar power, bringing fully-charged laptops for the children to use in class. A digital library (EGranary) has also been installed to provide access to additional literacy resources. The aim of this project was to help children pass their exams (as they often have ICT requirements), and to enable students to access information that would be of local value, such as those about farming methods as a way to help their parents improve farming practices (i.e. yields and income). Students then are targeted as the agents of change in their communities. The project does have the need for ongoing financial support, as challenges include the need to pay for gas, vehicles, trained librarians, teachers, technicians and educational software. Finances aside, this project has gained international recognition. Both Kyrgyzstan and Liberia have requested briefings on what contributed to the project’s success (Tamakloe, 2014).

The people benefiting from these various initiatives are widespread. They include the young, adolescents, families, and most often, communities as a whole. When meaningful information is provided in an accessible and reliable way, there is potential for all community members to be affected. Children, for example, receive emergent readers, adolescents ICT training to pass exams, farmers glean information about improved farming methods, subsidy opportunities and ICT usage. The increased access to books, literacy support, and ICT contributes to the creation of literate environments, bringing new hope and prosperity to the neediest regions of the world (Lipeikaite).  

References

Asselin, M. & Doiron, R. (n.d.).  It takes a village to raise a reader : Guidelines for reading promotion & Literacy support in community libraries. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from https://codelibraries.wordpress.com/

Asselin, M. & Doiron, R. (2009). Supporting literacy in Ethiopia through libraries and reading rooms. Bookmark, 49. Retrieved from http://bctf.ca/bctla/pub/bookmark/2009winterBookmark.pdf

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (2015). Global Libraries. Retrieved from http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development/Global-Libraries

CODE (2013). Reading Ethiopia. Retrieved from http://www.codecan.org/our-programs/where-we-work/ethiopia

Eldis (2015). Retrieved February 24, 2015 from the Eldis Wiki: http://community.eldis.org/.59bf83cb/Wiki/

Lipeikaite, U. (nd). Small services big impact: public libraries’ contribution to urban and rural development. Retrieved from 

Momodu, O.M. (2012, September, 30). Rural libraries and community development in Nigeria. International Journal of Basic, Applied and Innovative Research, 1. Retrieved from

OLPC Mission: One laptop per child. [Video file]. Retrieved from http://one.laptop.org/about/mission

http://www.worldbank.org/projects/P096328/rural-education-development-read-project-formerly-rural-education-support-project?lang=en

Ranga, M. & Pradhan, P.  (2014, August). Generating solutions for rural development through ICT in India. Journal of WEI Business and Economics, 3. Retrieved from

Tamakloe, A. (2014, May 30). Innovative mobile library brings rural school children ICT and new educational opportunties. Retrieved from http://library.ifla.org/867/

[Community centre in Kenya]. Retrieved from http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development/Global-Libraries

[Local librarian]. Retrieved from http://bctf.ca/bctla/pub/bookmark/2009winterBookmark.pdf