Libraries

This issue of The Soul Beat focuses on information from the network about different kinds of libraries in Africa that house tools, toys, books, archives and electronic resources and/or theme-based resources, as well as the access of libraries to information communication technologies. If you would like to contribute your own experiences, please contact Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com

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EXPERIENCES

1. Ubuntu Self Help Educare Resource Centre (USHERC) Toy Library - South Africa

The USHERC Toy Library aims to uplift early childhood development (ECD) by providing information, resources and a toy library to parents and practitioners, who learn how to use the toys for fun and education. The Toy Library acts as an information centre for different aspect of early childhood development, supporting ECD practitioners and their centres. It aims to empower them with skills and resources by providing access to play materials including toys, games, puzzles, educational aids and general play equipment.

Contact Shadrack Tshivhase shadrack@sn.apc.org

2. Information Services of the Zimbabwe Women Resource Centre & Network - Zimbabwe

This women's centre provides a documentation centre, an Internet café, lectures on gender and development, and publications. Its aims include acquiring, compiling, analysing, maintaining, and disseminating material on women, gender, and development issues. The documentation centre holds over 5,000 printed and audio-visual documents catalogued according to themes like violence against women, rape, women's access to land, women and the environment, and women in politics and decision-making.

Contact Isabella Matambanadzo isabella@zwrcn.org.zw

3. Cooperative Africana Microform Project (CAMP) - Africa

Trains and equips libraries in Africa to archive material, while saving indigenous languages and upgrading African librarians and their media so that they can be available online. CAMP promotes the preservation of publications and archives concerning the nearly fifty nations of Sub-Saharan Africa and aims to make these materials in microform available to researchers. By relying on the vast microform collections, CAMP avoids the high costs of acquiring, cataloguing, and storing such materials locally.

Contact James Simon simon@crl.edu

4. HIV/AIDS Library Through Online Volunteering - Nigeria

This project set out to build an HIV/AIDS Library in Lagos, Nigeria, drawing on the resources and skills of online volunteers. It works with volunteers from the United Nations Volunteers and NetAid and has stocked a library at a village health centre with reading materials on HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections.

Contact Nduka Ozor nduka@chistre.org

5. Men on the Side of the Road (MSR) - South Africa

This project aims to recognise and represents men who stand on the side of the road daily, hoping for casual labour. MSR is a federation for the unemployed that creates public awareness of the importance of job creation and self-employment skills training. It collects used tools, trains members to repair them and operates a tools library, loaning tools to the unemployed, to facilitate self-employment opportunities. It encourages the public to donate tools through local media campaigns, using posters, advertisements, and local radio, and aims to collect one million used and broken tools over three years.

Contact Charles Maisel unemploymen@mweb.co.za

6. Lubuto - Eastern & Southern Africa

Provides library collections for orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) in eastern and southern Africa. Lubuto libraries provide learning to children whose futures have been affected by the HIV/AIDS. The goal of the project is to give the growing numbers of street children in anglophone countries in the region the opportunity to participate in non-formal education, improving literacy, language skills and general knowledge.

Contact Jane Kinney Meyers mayazi@verizon.net

See also:

Ghana Book Trust (GBT) - Ghana

Documentation Centre - Zimbabwe

Regional Leadership Development Centre (RLDC) - Uganda

STRATEGIC THINKING

7. Opportunities & Challenges for the Academic Libraries of Carnegie Grantees in East & West Africa

This 20-page study reports on the situation of seven academic libraries in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. The report, conducted by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, comments on and analyses common challenges and opportunities to enhance library service, professional developments, immediate and long-term needs and provides recommendations. The research indicates that even premier African universities suffer a lack of bandwidth capacity which limits networking beyond the immediately local community.

8. HIV/AIDS: What Role for Library & Information Centres?
by Prof. Kingo Mchombu

This report maintains that library and information services in Namibia have a vital role in addressing HIV/AIDS in their country and that library staff should consider the social science dimension of HIV/AIDS and their work. It comments on where Namibians obtain information about sexuality and provides a summary of locally-produced, relevant material, newsletters, periodicals, booklets, reports, flyers, and posters. The author proposes that libraries create relevant debates, lectures, and discussion forums for members of their target community.

9. The Internet: Internet as a Development Factor

In connection with a Danida project about the use of Internet in university libraries, an investigation into African researchers' and librarians' expectations of the Internet was conducted. The investigation, situated in Ghana and South Africa, indicates that the Internet has a large potential to improve access to information and break down the isolation that the countries experience. Another aim of the investigation was to look into the possibilities of proving a direct connection between access to the Internet and the traditional methods of measuring a country's development process.

MATERIALS

10. Communities Uniting to Confront HIV/AIDS in Africa

This virtual exhibit highlights the diverse materials used to inform some African communities about HIV/AIDS. The items showcased online were originally exhibited at the Northwestern University Library, USA, in an exhibition entitled "Celebrating World AIDS Day: HIV/AIDS in Africa". The exhibit includes books, journals, pamphlets, videos, posters, music, dolls, quilts, embroidery, T-shirts, and other crafts presenting educational messages about HIV/AIDS to certain African communities.

11. African Film & Video Catalog from Media for Development International (MFDI)

This 46-page online catalogue lists African dramatic films conveying social messages on issues such as agriculture, ecology, conflict, AIDS, teenage sexuality and pregnancy, women's issues and general health. The films use the medium of edutainment or enter-educate to inform and educate audiences. The catalogue lists approximately 100 titles distributed by MFDI of potential interest to non-governmental organisations, school and university libraries, and African studies centres worldwide. The films are available in French, English, Portuguese and some African languages.

AWARDS

12.The Tech Museum Awards

This award honours innovators from around the world, including Africa, who use technology to benefit humanity in the categories of education, equality, economic development, environment, and health. It showcase their stories, aiming to inspire future scientists, technologists, and dreamers to harness the power and of technology to solve the challenges of the 21st century. The Tech Museum focuses on technology, how it works and the way that it is changing the way people work, live, play and learn.

Deadline: April 4 2005

13. The Nordic Africa Institute's African Guest Researchers' Scholarship Programme for 2006

This scholarship is for senior scholars in Africa engaged in research on/about the African continent. Research topics may include: cultural images in and of Africa; liberation and democracy in Southern Africa; sexuality, gender, and society; gender and age in African cities; state recuperation, resource mobilisation and conflict; and post-conflict transition, the state and civil society in Africa.

Deadline: April 1 2005

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EVENTS

14. 8th Bibliophilia Africana Conference - May 11-14 2005 - Cape Town, South Africa

This conference will focus on challenges of book development and pricing, preservation of books and oral literature, history and folklore, public libraries, the current and future role of national libraries in collecting rare Africana. Participants will discuss reading literacy, and the impact of information technology on book development and on literature and how they are being addressed in various sectors and at various levels across the continent of Africa.

15. Library & Information Association of South Africa (LIASA)
Eighth Annual Conference - Sept 26-30 2005 - Nelspruit, South Africa
This conference, based on the theme "Taking Libraries to the People", will provide opportunities to stimulate the development of pro-active and innovative ways to bring library services to all people. Topics include mobile library services, services for the disabled, specialised library services, advocacy for libraries, indigenous knowledge systems, the role of libraries in bridging the digital divide and preserving South African culture.

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This issue was written by Estelle Jobson.


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The Soul Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

Please send material for The Soul Beat to the Editor - Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com