A video tour of UTRT's Mpigi Community Library!

FAVL's partner, Under the Reading Tree, has posted an enjoyable and well-made video capturing the activities at the Mpigi Community library in Uganda! Take a look!

Read UTRT's blog post about the library and the video here.

Kwale Community library in Kenya

Apparently being supported by Oakville Library in Canada. See their flickr photos...

Uh oh... wizards in Gowrie-Kunkua in Ghana

From librarian Jennifer's monthly report on the library, explaining why visitors at night hours were lower:

The major problem that occurred in community was a curfew from which every member of the community was to stay indoors after five o'clock simply because a member of the community has been accuse of being a wizard and was beaten to death. As a result the law was then taking its course which the police were then arresting and person found outside after 5pm.

Librarian trainings and workshops...

FAVL hosts the occasional workshop- it is a necessary part of any enterprise, and the issue is when is it taken to excess. (Many of my university colleagues know what I mean!) I found the following paragraphs from Susan Watkins and Ann Swidler particularly blunt:

(i) Training and the ‘‘Workshop Mentality”
In Malawi as elsewhere Sub-Saharan Africa, the supply of
‘‘training” has created a huge demand. In an incisive analysis
of family planning programs in Nigeria, Daniel Jordan Smith
(2003) has described the ‘‘workshop mentality,” arguing that
training and workshops provide the ideal intersection of donor
and recipient interests. Donors can believe they are doing something
self-renewing by providing training, while workshop facilitators
can build their patronage ties by providing access to the
per diems, travel allowances, and opportunities for networking
that workshops provide. But we argue that the predominance of
‘‘training” as a core donor-sponsored activity also arises from
the constraints of the sustainability doctrine. If donors are supposed
to help, but without funding substantive programs that
could breed dependency, then training and workshops are the
ideal donor-funded activity: experts will teach people skills, or
better yet teach them to teach skills, which will provide all with
the capacity to provide for their own needs.

The logic of sustainability reinforces the interstitial elites’
commitment to esoteric knowledge. If funders will not finance
substantive projects (VCT, nutrition supplements, paid healthcare
workers, paid teachers or counselors) on an on-going basis
because they would not be sustainable, then ‘‘training” is
one of the only fundable activities. And what is all that training
to consist of? Since the training is in some ways an end in
itself for both donors and those trained, the content of the
training becomes elaborate formalizations of what would
otherwise be common sense.

Swidler, A., & Watkins, S.C., ‘‘Teach a Man to Fish”: The Sustainability Doctrine and Its ..., World Development (2009), doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.11.002

I will add that a refrain that I hear myself repeating to a lot to potential library funders etc is, "It's not that hard to run a village library... a week working in one of our libraries is enough to get all the basic skills for administration." The harder part- storytelling, leading book discussions, imparting the love of reading, animation- is probably better imparted through one-on-one that through a formal workshop. Lots of learning by doing is needed.

A library founder in Uganda

Kate Parry writes:

One of the Uganda Community Library Association’s members, Michael Oguttu, has written the following account of his own motives in setting up a community library at Bugiri. I have visited it, and at present it has little to offer, while the need is evidently enormous. At the same time, it’s a shining example of the kind of local initiative that UgCLA is trying to encourage. Michael himself is the librarian of another UgCLA member library, Inforall, in Kampala.

From: Oguttu Michael [mailto:micoguttu@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2009 5:07 PM
To: kateparry@earthlink.net

BUGIRI COMMUNITY LIBRARY

Background:
After working for a community in Kampala, I realized how important libraries are to the promotion of reading culture, literacy and development and also improvement of education performance in the world. This also made me believe that books/information materials or information can change/improve the ways of living. From the fact that I studied from my home district(Bugiri) Uganda, where there are so many private schools and only few government owned schools. Most of the schools have no libraries and only few have books which are kept in books, which actually limit children/students access to books. Most of the teachers don’t have access to textbooks-this means that they only use the notes they copied during their study/school days, and yet the syllabus changes which has or is leading to poor performance in education sector in most rural schools. Another fact is that the income of rural based families is so low and they can not manage to buy text books for their children, this is also proved by many parents failing to pay school fees which have led to many school drop-outs in Bugiri and Uganda at large. Not forgetting that even if the government introduced universal primary and secondary education (UPE and USE) respectively, many children/students are not going to schools due to failure by parents to buy only scholastic materials which is due to poor states in families. Although I got the interest of helping my home district/nation by establishing a community library, I didn’t wakeup one day morning and put it in place. But it was a gradual process.

STAGE 1
I started by saving some of the money from my little allowances I got.
STAGE 2
In July 2008, I attended the workshop of people who were eager to establish a community library in their local areas which was organized by Uganda community libraries association (UgCLA).after which I learnt skills of how to start and run a community library.
STAGE 3
And it was from there that I got the courage to go and talk to the leaders in Bugiri district, residents, and my family members who all welcomed the idea. But their major worry was where the funds will come from. But I answered them that all will be solved. And now the library is operating helping both children and adults.

I believe that, ‘there is nothing good like serving my others in need’.

Mr. Oguttu Michael
Founder
micoguttu@yahoo.com
bugiricomu.lib@gmail.com
+256 75 1 935 054.

(Photo:
The Bugiri Community Library. Michael Oguttu, the founder, is on the right, in the back row, and the librarian, whom he pays from his own salary, is in front. Also in the back row is Michael's brother, who works as library assistant - and all the others are children who were playing around the front of the library and whom the library hopes to serve. )

An aborted village library in Zimbabwe

Kim Dionne sends a link to an interesting but too brief short article from a library friend from Zimbabwe who tried to start a library in his home village.

This (if it had succeeded) would have been the first ever library in Ruwa and Zimre Park 30 kms East of Harare. I could envision how this small step in the right direction was going to change the educational landscape in this area one child at a time. However this was the beginning of the end for the project as my contact ran into bureaucratic hurdles that are typical of our African culture and politics. The local councilor had to be involved, and the Member of Parliament for the whole district, the Education Ministry officials all the way down to the Zanu Pf youth league. It saddened me to know that although none of these people were paying a dime for the project they denied every poor child in the area a life long chance to read a book and improve themselves in their educational pursuit. Needless to say even their kids were going to benefit. These fat cats wanted to be associated with the project obviously for political gain. The books are now sitting at my friend’s house, and I hope his kids and their friends are reading them.

The politics and obstacles are all too real, but I do not see any lessons being drawn in how to go about doing things differently. It occurs to me that maybe one reason for "failure" (a word I intensely dislike when talking about development projects) is that there may have been too much talk, too much setting up expectations, and too little action. That is, if the books had been sent to the friend's house, and the friend had simply opened a room for reading, and hired a local secondary school student to sit and be the librarian, monitoring use, I wonder whether there would have been any opposition? The library would have been started, to no great fanfare. This is actually a lesson I take deep to heart. Although many of our libraries open with some ceremony, with visits from the U.S. Ambassador, myself and the local FAVL team know these are potential dangerous "shutdown" moments. So in general we eschew ceremonies and such, and try to just get on with day-to-day business, and not ruffle any local political feathers. Low profile, is the lesson.

New blog from folks at Under the Reading Tree

Check it out- they just started and it has a nice look and so far very interesting postings... excerpt here...

We were further encouraged when we visited a couple of schools INFORALL has been working on ’sensitizing’ about reading. We toured St. Jared’s Secondary School, attended by 250 local students, some of which are boarders from further away. While many of the students eyes glazed over when we asked them about INFORALL’s library, we met with a very enthusiastic Information Club, with a couple of dozen members. Michael, INFORALL’s librarian, has been working with these students to make them aware of the library and its resources as well as encourage them to study, learn and write together on a weekly basis.

In our discussions with the group, they asked us for funding that would allow them to publish a regular ‘magazine’ or newsletter that would feature local news, articles and other material submitted by the club’s members as well as other contributors. We couldn’t promise anything, but really appreciated their enthusiasm and are thinking we could try and find a high school in Canada that would be willing to fundraise/sponsor this small project and perhaps even enter into a semi-regular dialogue with the Information Club at St. Jared’s.

A message forwarded to FAVL... from South Sudan

Sudan is dear to my heart, and why shouldn't a network of community libraries get started there? We'll start a Ning network page soon.

Dear colleagues

I am pleased to inform you that yesterday, April 1, a public community
library was opened in Mundri town. This public library was made possible
through the generous contribution of the local community of Mundri.

The fund for the construction of Mundri Community Library was raised locally
on 20-26 September 2008. In that period of one week, Mundri Relief &
Development Association (MRDA) organised young volunteers who moved
house-to-house in Mundri and Kotobi to collect money and in-kind
contribution. The community fund raising initiative raised SDG 14,777 in
cash and SDG 6,863 in pledges. We used part of that money (SDG 3,500) to
renovate a clinic for under 5 children in Mundri PHCC and the rest to
construct and furnish the community library, which was opened yesterday. The
under five clinic was opened on October 6, 2009 and is doing very well.

I am pleased that a dedicated group of young women and men have toiled hard
and we now have in Mundri Town a centre of learning and culture for all
people. Unfortunately, we don't have enough books in the library. We bought
some books (worth SDG 1,465) but this is not enough. When we opened the
library yesterday most of the selves were empty!

Do you have any book that you could donate to Mundri Community Library? We
are looking for books for young readers - both school children and out of
school youth. We would also appreciate books for general readers. UN/NGO
publications are welcome. If you are in Juba and you would like to provide
books for Mundri Community Library please drop them to Trudy van Ommeren,
who has kindly accepted to collect books for the library. Trudy works with
ICCO as Programme Manager of Capacity Assessment and Development Programme
(CADEP). You can reach Trudy on trudyvanommeren@yahoo.co.uk or +249 126 148
560. We will arrange to transport the books from Juba to Mundri.

If you need more information about the Mundri Community Library or want to
know more about MRDA and the work we do, please contact me on the addresses
below.

I look forward to hearing from you

Kennet Korayi
Director, MRDA
PO Box 339, Juba, SUDAN

Presentation for Peace Corps volunteers in Ouagadougou

FAVL rep. SARE Elisee gave a short presentation to some Burkina Faso PCV... including Adelaide Schwartz who took over from Meghan Coughlin, supporting the library of Niankorodougou. Please help us support these PC volunteers as they work to establish libraries in their villages.

Bonjour Michael,

J'ai fait mon expose cet apres midi au bureau des Peace Corps avec une dizaine de volontaires

J'ai comme prevu commente le diaporama.et jai eu une petite discution avec eux apres cela.

Les questions ont essentiellement portees sur :

Le salaire du bibliothecaire, comment faire pour le payer.

Combien d'argent faut - il pour etablir la bibliotheque

Fonctionnement de la bibliotheque apres le depart du (de la ) volontaire

Etablissement d'une bibliotheque dans une petite ville (Orodara)

A propos du salaire j'ai expliquer le fait qu'il faille le prendre a compte et ce, de facon durable,au moment meme de la recherche de financement pour l'etablissement de la bibliotheque. Quand au fonctionnement sur le long terme j'ai aussi explique le cas de Mehgan.qui a reussi a impliquer Adelaide (elle etait presente ce soir). Et de tout facon, avec l'implication des communautes a travers les comites de gestion, c'est un premier pas vers la durabilite de la bibliotheque.

Pour le montant necessaire a l'etablissment je me suis refere au manuel et au depliant donc environs 2,5 million qui peuvent variee d'une region a une autre en fonction du cout des materiaux. En plus il faut prevoir environs 600 mille chaque annee pour assurer le salaire du bibliothecaire et le fonctionnement la bibliotheque.En ce qui concerne l'etablisement d'une bibliotheque en ville j'ai explique le fait que nous n'intervenons que dans les villages, ou les moyens d'avoir acces a la lecture sont vraiment limites.

Ensuite Adelaide et une autre volontaire ont fait aussi un expose qu'elles ont preparer sur quelquespartenaires intervenant en Afrique dont FAVL, Book for Africa, Library Skeleton etc. elles ont explique les moyens actions de ces structures et la nature de aides qu'elle apportent.

Teresa Jolly Holt points people to a great opportunity!

Fulbright Grant to support a Lubuto Literacy Fellow

The Lubuto Project is encouraging qualified library professionals to apply for this Fulbright position to develop the literacy program and to teach children’s literature and library services to children at the University of Zambia, to both education and library studies students.

While this position is with the University of Zambia, via the Fulbright Program, the candidate is expected to be working cooperatively with and in support of the Lubuto Library Project.

Qualified candidates who are interested in the position are encouraged to discuss their application with Jane Meyers, president of the Lubuto Project. Please contact her via webmail@lubuto.org.

The preferred candidate will have a Ph.D. in a library-related field and expertise in teaching library and information science. As Fulbright award #9109, the position will include a salary and living stipend for the candidate and his/her family for one year.

Anyone interested in applying should take the following steps:

1. Review eligibility requirements for the Fulbright Scholar program at: http://www.cies.org/us_scholars/us_awards/Eligibility.htm

2. Contact Dr. A. Ng’and, Registrar, at the University of Zambia's Registrar's office (registrar@admin.unza.zm) to request a letter of invitation in application for the position.

Note: The opening is for the 2010-2011 academic year. Applications will not be accepted until early March 2009.

How many community libraries are there in Africa?

Anne-Reed Angino and Meredith Gerhardt have been working on this, and it is coming along!!! The map opens looking at the U.S.- you have to click on the "view larger map" at the bottom to see Africa... sigh.


View Larger Map

New publication by Kate Parry

It is available here in gated form... but not so difficult to join.

The Story of a Library: Research and Development in an African Village
Teachers College Record
Kate Parry — 2009

Background: Although education in Africa is expanding, little is being done to support learners’ literacy outside the school. Rural people have little access to books and so cannot develop their reading skills.

Purpose of Study: The project described here has both an educational and a research purpose: to complement formal schooling by making reading material available to students and others, and to document the development of new literacy practices by investigating and recording readers’ preferences.

Setting: The site is near the trading center of Kitengesa in Masaka District in Uganda. It is a rural area where most people depend on subsistence farming and the sale of food and cash crops. Many have been to school, however, and basic literacy is widespread.

Intervention: The project has consisted of the establishment and development of a community library, in cooperation with a local private secondary school. It is supported by funds that the author and other supporters raise in the United States and Canada.

Research Design: The research is a case study that follows an action research model. The intervention was initially based on observational research together with consultation with representatives of the community; it was carefully documented from the outset and the findings used to inform the project’s further development.

Data Collection and Analysis: The data consist primarily of the library’s records of members joining, books borrowed, and users’ declared purposes in coming to the building. The written records are supplemented by observations of behavior in the library and interviews with users.

Results: Local responses indicate that there is considerable potential for developing a reading culture in the area. Story books have proved to be most popular, but school textbooks and newspapers are also much in demand. The project has attracted interest from foreign visitors, who have used the library as a base for initiating other development projects.

Conclusions: The Kitengesa experience demonstrates that a community library is a cost-effective way of supporting literacy development and enabling research on literacy practices. It also provides a base for other grassroots development projects. The suggested way forward is to build on this experience by encouraging the growth of similar libraries throughout Uganda.

News from Kate in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi

Kate Parry is at present on a visit to Rwanda and Burundi, and she writes from Kigali airport:

I have this morning been visiting the library of the UN International Criminal Tribunal in Kigali. It focuses on the subjects of law, human rights, and war crimes, including genocide, and offers print materials on these subjects, unpublished theses and dissertations, and access to the internet. It also shows films and videos of the proceedings that continue in Arusha against the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide. Besides serving law students, lawyers, and researchers, it provides materials to the general public, members of which often want to know what happened to their own families. It also runs ten provincial centres where, again, people can get information about the Tribunal’s proceedings. Here, then, is a different perspective on libraries: they are providing information to promote reconciliation – and by providing information, in writing, about matters that are of the deepest concern to people, they must also be promoting literacy, in a particularly effective way.

Yesterday I visited the library that was set up a year or so ago by Betsy Dickey, of Ready to Read and a leading member of FAVL’s East Africa committee. The library is flourishing: it was full of children when we arrived, all busily reading (many in English!), and one little girl read some of her book aloud to me. The librarian, Emmanuel, runs a regular story time and a creative writing workshop, and they have a computer centre. Best of all, the government was so impressed by the library that it’s put a whole lot of money into rebuilding the school. But the library is not just a school library, Emmanuel says: other members of the community are beginning to use it, and so, despite being in the city, it is furthering FAVL’s philosophy of serving African communities by providing information.

Betsy is now working on setting up another library at Rwinkwavu, where the medical organization, Partners in Health, already has a hospital. She is well supported by PIH (though of course she has to raise the funds) as well as by the relevant government ministries.

These libraries are not FAVL libraries, but they are already loosely affiliated to FAVL through Betsy. We hope, too, that they can become part of a Rwanda (Community?) Libraries Association which can work collaboratively with UgCLA.

African Library Project

I finally reconnected with Chris Bradshaw, who runs African Library Project, which coordinates book drives in U.S. schools, "aggregates" the books, and gets them to partner organizations in southern Africa to start village libraries. They have shipped books for more than 200 libraries in just a few short years! If you are thinking of a way to help English speaking school kids, consider organizing a book drive- all the information you need is available on their website.

A Dakar library profiled in Christian Science Monitor

I just came across this nice article today. One thing... FAVL libraries don't have paintings of Donald Duck... yet... (FAVL reps Sare Elisee and Koura Donkoui visited the library in November, their report (in French) is available here.)

Pikine, Senegal

Fatima Ndoye has just finished “L’enfant noir,” a novel based on the childhood of Guinean author Camara Laye. She could hardly put it down – except that she hardly had the chance to pick it up, either. She has been reading it in borrowed snatches of time when she races across the street from her school to the Pikine Library during her lunch break.

This crude library – a 15-by-65 foot room in a concrete cultural center – is a treasure trove for the 14-year-old, who says she tries to read a novel a week here during hour-long visits. The daughter of a construction worker who earns $10 a day, she can’t afford the $2 library card nor the two passport-sized photos required to get one, so she reads the books in installments, a little every day.

Fatima, her blue school vest covering jeans and T-shirt, knows every corner of the library: She walks to a shelf that’s three-quarters full and tells a visitor, “these are the novels.” The shelf below, she says, are books about business. She wanders a few more steps, and indicates the children’s section, picking up a picture book and rifling through the pages.

“When I was little,” she muses, “I liked these books. But now I’m bigger and I’ve changed. Because you progress. You progress all the time. I’m 14 now, and I read much bigger books.”

Public libraries in Mali

Entitled: "A Postcolonial Study of Three Public Libraries in Mali" by Jenny Wik. It is a Swedish college thesis, it seems. She discusses three libraries in three small towns. An extract:

The obstacles that the libraries are facing are apprehended fairly similarly in the three cases. The informants say that people don’t like reading very much and that the Malian people don’t have time to go to the library. In Bougouni and Tombouctou the frequentation by girls was very low, which is a serious problem. The girls are in general less educated than the boys and they have obligations in the house-hold work which hinders them to study and to use the library. Providing relevant documentation is difficult, especially in Bougouni and Koulikoro where the choice often is made abroad. The lack of money is a problem in all three cases which hinders the libraries providing sufficient staff, materials and relevant documentation.

One of the clearest issues that indicates postcolonial presence is the inadequate documentation that the investigated libraries are having sent to them. They are sent from abroad, often from France, the former coloniser of Mali, and the books are often old eliminated books not always relevant for the Malian readers. The way this type of co-operation is handled is based upon the fact that the Malian institutions are dependent on Northern values. French books for French readers are being sent to Mali for Malian readers because they are not needed anymore in France can be understood as a serious neo-colonial problem for these libraries. Another problem related to the documentation is that most books are in French in spite of the fact that there is a demand for books in other languages for example English. Books in the national languages are also underrepresented in the three studied libraries.

Another short discussion from 2006 of community libraries in Mali, by Mamadou Konoba Keita, the then Head of the Libraries and Documentation centres department of Mali, and President of the Malian Librarians Association.
- 46 district libraries;
- 1 rural community library;
- 7 national language libraries;
- 6 public libraries in Bamako;
- 6 reading and children's activity centres in Bamako;
- 1 reference library in Bamako;
- 1 children’s library in Bamako;
- 11 book deposits in rural areas bordering the railroad

Yes you saw that right, there is one (1) community library in rural areas in Mali (i.e. in villages). There are about 15,000 villages in Mali. So only 14,999 to go.

IFLA newsletter Africa Section

Teresa Jolly Holt sends us the link, here.

CODE has a nice blog about books and libraries in Africa

Here's one entry about two Ethiopian libraries... there is lot's more here.

Today we had a chance to visit some reading rooms, or small libraries, in the company of CODE Ethiopia’s Executive Director Tesfaye Dubale. The first one was meant to be a youth centre, but when the community heard that CODE would start a library in their area, they donated it freely and have begun construction right next door for the youth centre. It promises to be a great spot for children in the area. The kids at this reading room spoke English well and we jumped into the centre of a group of students, laughing and talking with them. The second reading room we visited was in a town called Sebeta, in a semi-urban area just outside of Addis Ababa. It first started as a converted one-room house, donated by the town’s mayor in 1988. CODE-Ethiopia provided books and trained four librarians and five management committee members. With improved resources and services students from Sebeta and also the surrounding area flocked to the Reading Room. The Sebeta Reading Room was so successful that a second larger one was built by the community to accommodate the demand for access to resources. It’s an impressive story, and we were especially inspired to learn that community members are now working to erect a third library building, thanks to a generous benefactor in the area. In addition, the local government has now included ongoing funding in their municipal budget. This is the definition of sustainability and success in development, and we’re all feeling lucky to see it.
-Ann Speak, Director of Fundraising, CODE

New IFLA Publication on Libraries and UN Millennium Development Goals

Libraries and Information Services Towards the Attainment of the UN Millennium Development Goals Edited by Benson Njobvu and Sjoerd Koopman. Munich: K.G. Saur, 2008 (IFLA Publications; 134) ISBN 978-3-598-22040-1

The United Nations Millennium declarations of 2002 set eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015. The high poverty levels in most African countries make many aware that it is no longer up to the governments alone to find ways of abetting it, but that other organizations need to join the fight. Libraries are well placed to contribute to the development process in supporting it by providing relevant, up to date and reliable information. The papers presented in this publication address the question how African libraries and information professionals seek to make themselves relevant to national development. All of them focus on how libraries and information centres could contribute to the attainment of these MDGs. The papers are a selection of the proceedings of the Eighteenth Standing Conference of East, Central and Southern Africa Library and Information Associations (SCECSAL) held in Lusaka, Zambia, from 15^th – 18^th July 2008.

Talking up African libraries with strangers in airports...

That's what happened to Marilyn Deer, and the result is a nice article in Scholastic.com about Jordan Nu library in Ghana. You never know what might happen... so give a stranger a warm cup of coffee next time you are traveling, all you favlheads, pull out your latest FAVL newsletter, and ...

A New Library in Ghana
Scholastic.com Sept/Oct 2008
After one of our editors had a chance meeting in an airport (as a silver lining to a long delay), the Instructor staff got some new inspiration from a library in Africa. Marilyn Deer is a retired nurse from Seattle who wanted to share the joy of reading.

As a daughter of missionary parents, she had traveled in Africa and grown up in Nigeria. In 2002, she visited a town in Ghana called Jordan Nu and decided they needed a library—to provide a mosquito-free, well-lit, comfortable and inviting place to read and study. The community provided the difficult manual labor for the building, completed in 2007, after nearly five years construction (with women carrying river water in headpans from half a mile away so the builders could mix cement). Deer provided most of the funding, with some donations from interested friends and family. We will, of course, be sending her books! Below are some photos from the completed project. We hope you find them as inspirational as we do.

To make donations, go to Friends of African Village Libraries, a worthy organization, no matter what, but if you include a note for Jordan Nu, your donation will go there directly.