Libraries Across Borders Group @ BCLA

Ceazeria Public Library, located in the village of Buikwe in Mukono District in Central Uganda, was started in 2000 by Mr Francis Kigobe, a local farmer who believes that he was unable to continue his education to tertiary level because the school he went to did not have a library. The National Library of Uganda has also supported this initiative by training staff and donating books. Close to 7,000 books make up of children’s books, books on vocational training and books for secondary schools are now available for the community to use.

ALF has now contributed further funds to assist the library in purchasing computers, TV, videos and accessories to provide computer training to children and secondary school students. In addition, there will be access to information from the National Agricultural Information Services (NAADS) and international sources through the National Library of Uganda in its efforts to improve agricultural practices in the country.

Visit the project web site @ http://www.nlu.go.ug/btp.htm

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Nepal is emerging from a time of civil war, the end of which has been recently negotiated by the Nepali Government and the Maoist insurgents. With this new peace, communities can now feel confident to develop services. The Tikapur Library is a community initiative established in 2004 in conjunction with READ Nepal, which assisted with the project plan for a sustainable library project. The Library, with a small collection, currently runs from a room provided by the District Development Committee. The Library has an 11-member committee representing a cross section of the community and an advisory committee represented by local government officials. The purpose of the project is to provide library related resources and services to a larger project that has in it a money-generating component that will provide self sustainability to the library.. ALF is very interested in supporting a library project that has this sustainability component built in.

Nepal Library Foundation of Vancouver and READ Nepal – Tikapur Community Library

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Uganda instituted Universal Primary Education in 1997, and is currently instituting Universal Secondary Education. However, this process continues to face funding problems and schools are currently under-financed, and under-resourced. YouLead UBC has been working with the Kitengesa Secondary School and has helped developed the Community Library which is now in need of additional resources. ALF has assisted with funds to expand the existing library building. To make sure that it has adequate electric power, UBC YouLead has already raised the money for solar electricity in the library. The ultimate goal of this new extension is to implement a web-based library containing some 2 million texts, and comes on a hard disk called eGranary, developed by a group called Widernet (http://www.widernet.org/digitalLibrary/index.htm), which is supported by the University of Iowa.

Visit the project web site @ http://youlead.org/catalog/globalaid-uganda

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The Mobile library program of SATUNAMA for children began in 2001 in the rural area outside Yogyakarta. It became apparent through the success of the Mobile library service that a static community library would be most beneficial for the children and the community as a whole. ALF has now contributed to the formation of a community library with funds for library books, games, films, reading groups and community workshops on the educational needs of the local children.

Visit the web site @ http://www.usc-canada.org/

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Greenstone is a suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections. It provides a new way of organizing information and publishing it on the Internet or on CD-ROM. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO. It is open-source, multilingual software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Read the Greenstone Factsheet for more information.

The aim of the Greenstone software is to empower users, particularly in universities, libraries, and other public service institutions, to build their own digital libraries. Digital libraries are radically reforming how information is disseminated and acquired in UNESCO’s partner communities and institutions in the fields of education, science and culture around the world, and particularly in developing countries. We hope that this software will encourage the effective deployment of digital libraries to share information and place it in the public domain.

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Child Aid, in partnership with PROBIGUA (Projecto Bibliotecas Guatemala – a very successful programme that provides a mobile library service to schools and funds the service by providing Spanish Language lessons to non-Spanish speakers) has been initiating projects to further the development of library services in Guatemala for ten years. During that time a number of school libraries and a mobile library have been established. A need to train those involved in the provision of library services became apparent. A project was developed to provide training through a series of workshops to promote and support the development of library science skills in librarians in order that libraries can provide better skills in research, literacy, and community information. The idea is to create and support libraries where discovery, exploration and the love of reading and learning are promoted. ALF is pleased to be able to assist with this training.

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In 2006, ALF supported the development of the Bawku District Library in Northern Ghana in partnership with World University Service of Canada/Uniterra. The Library Coordinator, a WUSC/.Uniterra volunteer, did an amazing job of pulling together additional local resources and within a year the community had a fully-functioning and stocked library. This library serves 24 primary schools, 19 junior secondary schools as well as the residents of Bawku District. ALF continued its support of the Library in 2007 by providing funds to purchase computer and AV equipment to further supplement the Computer Room used to teach computer literacy and to provide additional learning resources through video/DVD.

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This project was launched at the November 2004 workshop in Accra. There are two important outcomes of this project. First is to get culturally appropriate and suitable children books in libraries in Africa. The second is the process of the project itself i.e. working closely with the booksellers and documenting the process in order to learn lessons about the opportunities and problems of cross border trade.

Visit their web site…

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Dr. Wosk is Director of Interdisciplinary Programs, Continuing Studies at Simon Fraser University’s and the founder of the largest series of café discussion gatherings in the world, The Philosophers Café.” He is also a holder of the Order of British Columbia, and has contributed to communities in BC, Canada and internationally in many ways as a philanthropist and as a member of many boards and commissions for libraries, urban and mental health rights.

From his activities he has identified libraries, museums and archives as areas of interest to which he wishes to continue his contribution. As a result he requested assistance from The Libraries Across Borders group in setting up a structure for identifying and providing financial assistance to libraries, museums and archives in disadvantaged communities. He has expressed an initial interest in libraries in developing countries, in small rural Canadian communities, in First Nations’ communities and in the Jewish community. To date, Dr. Wosk has contributed substantially to the Libraries Across Borders, Assistance to Libraries fund, through cash grants.

We are greatly honoured to have Dr. Wosk’s contributions and thank him for providing the basis upon which we have now been able to fund 10 very successful projects both here in BC and in developing countries.

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IFLA (The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the library and information profession.

Founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1927 at an international conference, we celebrated our 75th birthday at our conference in Glasgow, Scotland in 2002. We now have 1700 Members in 150 countries around the world. IFLA was registered in the Netherlands in 1971. The Royal Library, the national library of the Netherlands, in The Hague, generously provides the facilities for our headquarters.

Visit the web site @ http://www.ifla.org

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