Six-Country Africa Public Library Perception Study

Six-Country Africa Public Library Perception Study


"Most people in six African countries believe public libraries have the potential to contribute to community development in important areas such as health, employment and agriculture. However, libraries are small and under-resourced, and most people associate them with traditional book lending and reference services rather than innovation and technology."

These are among key findings of groundbreaking research into perceptions of public libraries in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda.

EIFL’s Public Library Innovation Programme (PLIP) commissioned the research to deepen understanding of the role of public libraries in Africa and of the vision, aspirations and expectations of the general public, librarians and national and local government. The study was conducted by the social and marketing research company, TNS RMS East Africa Ltd., from December to July 2011. It makes for interesting reading and produces a list of recommendations including advocacy to improve services based on community development needs, increased access to digitial technology, and building librarians' technical skills, as well as increasing outreach to particular user groups, including women.

CFP: Dis/connects: African Studies in the Digital Age

SCOLMA: The UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa

50th ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE

Dis/connects: African Studies in the Digital Age
Oxford, 25–26 June 2012

CALL FOR PAPERS

The digital revolution is profoundly affecting African studies. New digital resources are making available large areas of content, as well as greatly improving access to bibliographies. In Africa, governments and NGOs are publishing online, some publishers are moving to print on demand and e-books, and international academic journals are increasingly becoming available in university and national libraries.

Yet the story, as is well-known, is far from straightforward or unproblematic. This conference will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of SCOLMA by taking a critical look at the field of African studies and how it is changing. In particular, although there has been much discussion of new digital resources and what their creators plan to do, we have a limited understanding of their impact on their users and on knowledge production in general. For example, what are the implications for historical research of the availability of digitised sources, and of the choices made in their selection? How do social science researchers work in a field in which much, but not everything, is now available online? Are e-journals – or indeed mobile phones – beginning to change the research process in Africa? And, more generally, how have broader historical and political developments changed African studies and librarianship over the last half-century?

We welcome papers on these themes across the humanities, arts, social sciences and sciences. Papers may deal with digital content, whether digitised or born-digital, of any kind, e.g. archives and manuscripts; audio-visual material; maps; newspapers; books, journals and theses; photographs, prints, drawings and paintings; ephemera; statistical databases; and social media.

The conference will bring together academics and other researchers with librarians and archivists. We aim thus to have a productive exchange of expertise, experience and analysis on the question of knowledge production in African studies.

Themes may include, but are not limited to:

• How scholars, researchers, librarians and archivists use digitised resources.

• How African studies is changing, and the place of the digital revolution in these changes.

• Access to, selection of, and training in the use of digital resources in the library context. Are resources under-used?

• To pay or not to pay? How easy is it for researchers to find subscription e-resources? And for libraries to fund them? What is the balance of free and charged resources in the research process? How well do the models for making e-resources available in Africa work?

• How well does user consultation work?

• Access to the technology that underpins e-resources.

• Digital scholarship: are scholars in African studies using digital collections to generate new intellectual products?

• The impact of mobile phone technology on African studies.

• How patchy is the creation of digital resources, and what – and who – is being left behind?

• Language in Africa and new technology.

One-page abstracts of papers on these themes are warmly welcomed. If you would like to give a paper, please send your abstract to

Lucy McCann
SCOLMA Secretary
Email: lucy.mccann@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
Tel.: 01865 270908

THE DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS IS 31 OCTOBER 2011.

Papers in French are welcome if a summary is provided in English.

CFP: SCOLMA 50th Anniversary Conference: Dis/connects: African Studies in the Digital Age

SCOLMA: The UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa

50th ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE

Dis/connects: African Studies in the Digital Age

Oxford, 25–26 June 2012

CALL FOR PAPERS

The digital revolution is profoundly affecting African studies. New digital resources are making available large areas of content, as well as greatly improving access to bibliographies. In Africa, governments and NGOs are publishing online, some publishers are moving to print on demand and e-books, and international academic journals are increasingly becoming available in university and national libraries.

Yet the story, as is well-known, is far from straightforward or unproblematic. This conference will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of SCOLMA by taking a critical look at the field of African studies and how it is changing. In particular, although there has been much discussion of new digital resources and what their creators plan to do, we have a limited understanding of their impact on their users and on knowledge production in general. For example, what are the implications for historical research of the availability of digitised sources, and of the choices made in their selection? How do social science researchers work in a field in which much, but not everything, is now available online? Are e-journals – or indeed mobile phones – beginning to change the research process in Africa? And, more generally, how have broader historical and political developments changed African studies and librarianship over the last half-century?

We welcome papers on these themes across the humanities, arts, social sciences and sciences. Papers may deal with digital content, whether digitised or born-digital, of any kind, e.g. archives and manuscripts; audio-visual material; maps; newspapers; books, journals and theses; photographs, prints, drawings and paintings; ephemera; statistical databases; and social media.

The conference will bring together academics and other researchers with librarians and archivists. We aim thus to have a productive exchange of expertise, experience and analysis on the question of knowledge production in African studies.

Themes may include, but are not limited to:

• How scholars, researchers, librarians and archivists use digitised resources.
• How African studies is changing, and the place of the digital revolution in these changes.
• Access to, selection of, and training in the use of digital resources in the library context. Are resources under-used?
• To pay or not to pay? How easy is it for researchers to find subscription e-resources? And for libraries to fund them? What is the balance of free and charged resources in the research process? How well do the models for making e-resources available in Africa work?
• How well does user consultation work?
• Access to the technology that underpins e-resources.
• Digital scholarship: are scholars in African studies using digital collections to generate new intellectual products?
• The impact of mobile phone technology on African studies.
• How patchy is the creation of digital resources, and what – and who – is being left behind?
• Language in Africa and new technology.

One-page abstracts of papers on these themes are warmly welcomed. If you would like to give a paper, please send your abstract to

Lucy McCann
SCOLMA Secretary
Email: lucy.mccann@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Tel.: 01865 270908

THE DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS IS 31 OCTOBER 2011.

Papers in French are welcome if a summary is provided in English.

ULRLS changes its name

From 31 March 2011, Senate House Library and the eight Libraries of the Institutes of the School of Advanced Study, including the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library, will operate under the collective title of Senate House Libraries (SHLs).

The individual titles and names of the Institute Libraries are retained but the previous umbrella operating name, University of London Research Library Services or ULRLS, is replaced.

Travelling Librarian: Schomburg Centre for Black Cultural Studies

The final stop on my visit was to the Schomburg Centre for Black Cultural Studies, a New York Public Library Research Library, which collects, preserves and makes available material on peoples of African descent. For over 80 years the Center has been an important focus for collecting within the United States, and its collections include materials from Africa and the Caribbean.

Some particular archive collections of interest include collections relating to US organisations opposing the South African apartheid system, and archives of the American West Indian Ladies Aid Society, the Bermuda Benevolent Association, the British Virgin Islands Benevolent Association, George Padmore letters, Claude McKay letters and manuscripts, and a collection of letters written by C.L.R. James to his former wife and political associate, Constance Webb.

Travelling Librarian: New York University

New York was the final destination on my tour and I started with a visit to New York University. The Bobst Library is NYU's main library and was built in 1972 to a design by architects Philip Johnson and Richard Foster. A noticeable feature is the large internal atrium.

NYU's Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies began in the 1960’s but in depth collecting in the Caribbean region started later in the mid 1980s. Despite this more recent interest NYU houses a strong collection of material, aided in part by the donation of the Research Institute for the Study of Man. Library, archive and vertical file material up to 1985 was donated to the NYU Library to improve access and help preserve this material. All the library material has been added to the NYU catalogue and other collections listed. Details about the RISM collections are available in a guide to the collections.

It was interesting to spend a little time with the collections - noting that some of the RISM volumes had originally been sent from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library, as duplicates from the West India Committee Library collections. In my conversations with Angela Carreno, the subject specialist, we dicussed collaboration between New York libraries, sources for Caribbean materials, and the NYU ongoing renovation programme.

Travelling Librarian: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana (total population 180,000) in east-central Illinois. It is situated about 140 miles south of Chicago, 125 miles west of Indianapolis, and 180 miles northeast of St. Louis, and I travelled to and from the university by train, on an Amtrak service.

The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at UIUC is a Title VI National Resource Center in consortium with the University of Chicago Center for Latin American Studies, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. (Most of the libraries visited were linked to centres included in this funding scheme, either individually or in consortia.)


The University Library is one of the largest public university libraries in the United States, with more than 24 million items in the main library and over 35 departmental libraries and divisions. The Latin American and Caribbean Library is one of those libraries - but is soon to merge with other area studies collections. UIUC Libraries hold one of the largest collections of Latin American and Caribbean materials in the United States. Materials are located in the Main Stacks and in the various UIUC departmental libraries, including the Music and other libraries.

During my visit we spoke about collections and services generally. One interesting and useful resource I discussed with the current interim Librarian for the LAC collection was the Bibliographic Guide to Black Caribbean Literature - compiled by Thomas Weissinger and Nelly Sfeir v. de González.  

Travelling Librarian: University of Illinois Chicago

My person in visiting the Library at the University of Illinois Chicago was to spend time with staff from Special Collections and Digital Projects with whom I'd been working with 18 months ago on a joint digitisation bid, and to look at some of the collections we'd been talking about.

The University of Illinois Chicago holds three collections that were of interest: one collection of archives and two book collections.

•The Sierra Leone manuscripts collection consists of items related to the British administration of Sierra Leone, including public and private papers of British officials in the colony of Sierra Leone, 1792-1825. The collections includes reports and hand-drawn plans of the settlement and diaries and correspondence from Lt. John Clarkson (1973-1828) - Governor of Sierra Leone, 1792-1793; and from Captain Edward H. Columbine (d. 1811) - Governor of Sierra Leone, 1809-1811; an early collation of laws of Sierra Leone; Journals of various West African voyages  ( Lt. George Mitchener, Commander of the Brig, "Protector" - Reports of a cruise to Whydah and Benin, 1811; Lt. George W. Courtenay, Commander of H.M.S. "Bann." describing his experiences as a member of the anti-slavery patrol on the West African Coast, including visits to Sierra Leone and Liberia, 1823-1825; Richard M. Jackson, "Journal of a Voyage to Bonny River on the West Coast of Africa in the Ship Kingston from Liverpool" discussing a trading voyage, a trip to the Cameroons and the West African slave trade, 1825-1826; and John and Richard Lander, correspondence from their expedition in West Africa which led to the discovery of the mouth of the Niger River, 1830-1834

•The Atlantic Slave Trade Collection consists of over 200 years of legal, religious and secular publications documenting the Atlantic slave trade, including works issuing from Spain, France, Portugal, England, Africa and the Americas.



•The H.D. Carberry Collection of Caribbean Studies contains almost 1,000 volumes of English language literature and non-fiction by Caribbean authors. The works in this collection are generally first editions, published in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century. Note also: Images of the Caribbean Diaspora: Book Jacket Art from the H.D. Carberry Collection of Caribbean Studies.

Travelling Librarian - University of North Carolina and Duke University

The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and Duke University in Durham are separated by a short bus journey. Although one is a state funded and one a private university the two institutions have for many years co-operated in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, both in terms of academic departments and between libraries. Both libraries have strong collections developed over many years and under their co-operation agreement Duke has a responsibility for research level material covering the English-speaking Caribbean.

One of my reasons for visiting these two libraries was to explore how co-operation in collection worked in practice. I was also interested in seeing digitisation initiatives at UNC and the Haiti Lab at Duke, a multidisciplinary humanities research laboratory bringing together resources, faculty, graduates and undergraduates in one space to develop collaboration and the exchange of ideas, as well as working on projects such as women's rights in Haiti, post traumatic stress, translating and transcribing historic documents, alongside a visiting artist and a project looking at mapping conspiracies and resistance across the Atlantic world.

Travelling Librarian - University of Florida: Gainesville, North Florida

Despite intentions to update this blog while travelling, the intensity of meetings, travelling, note taking and preparation for each day prevented these best laid plans. Over the next few days I hope to make up for this by short descriptions of each stop.

The University of Florida, based in Gainesville, north Florida is a land-grant state university, set in a landscape of largely oak trees and spanish moss, as well as a few palm trees. The library is the strongest for Caribbean material in the state, and collects across the English speaking, Spanish speaking and French speaking Caribbean.  Due to the university's land grant status the library has a particular interest in areas such as tropical agriculture, sugar, citrus fruit, rural anthropology and sociology, and environmental issues. material from the Caribbean is bought for both the Latin American and Caribbean collection and other parts of the library system.

The collection is notable for its collections of newspapers (on microfilm and increasingly in digitised format). As well as newspapers the library also holds material such as the Bahamas Government records on microfilm and the Leeward Islands Gazette - now digitised. 

The University of Florida hosts the technology and equipment for the Digital Library of the Caribbean.

Travelling Librarian - visits Miami

That Florida is a centre of expertise and scholarship in Latin America and the Caribbean should not be a surprise. The geography of Florida in relation to Latin America and the Caribbean, the impact of migration and familial connections, and the role of Florida as a gateway to trade between the US and Latin American and the Caribbean all contribute to the strengths of academic study (and library resources) in Florida.

Visiting Miami one can't help but be aware of the links between Florida and Latin America and the Caribbean. Whether it is eating at Cuban and Haitian rsetaurants, listening to people speak Spanish on the bus, or seeing the range of passports on display at the airport you can not but be aware that this is in many respects a Caribbean city.

I spent time at two universities in Miami - Florida International University and the University of Miami. Florida International University (FIU) is a relatively new university, chartered in 1967 and opening in 1972. FIU is a state university with a student body of nearly 40,000. I visited staff at the Latin American and Caribbean Information Center, a department of the University Library, as well as staff in Special Collections and Reference services.The Library collects material across Latin America and the Caribbean, and also hosts the co-ordinator for the Digitial Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) . (I'll be posting more on dLOC soon).

The University of Miami, founded in 1925, is a private research university with more than 15,000 students. I spoke with the Latin American and Caribbean subject specialist, staff at Special Collections and staff at the Cuban Heritage Collection. Cuban collections have been strong since the foundation of the university and enhanced by strong links with the local Cuban communities, since the 1920's. The library also collects across Latin America and the Caribbean. The Library's special collections include holdings relating to the history of Florida and the Caribbean Basin, including the West Indies; the northern coastal regions of South America, Central America, and Mexico. The holdings include all but three of the dozens of books published in or about Jamaica between its conquest by the English in the 1650s and the end of plantation slavery in the British Empire in 1834, and travel narratives and other first-hand accounts which describe the societies and histories of the major West Indies islands as well as the smaller countries like Barbados, Antigua, Trinidad, and St. Lucia. The department also contains a number of rare titles on Guyana and Surinam. The Library has been involved in a number of digitial initiatives and has a number of online exhibits available.

Travelling Librarian

David Clover, the Commonwealth Studies Librarian, leaves tomorrow on a trip to the United States, on an itinerary including visits to universities and libraries in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and New York. David's trip is funded by the ESU/CILIP Travelling Librarian Award, an annual award intended to encourage US/UK contacts in the library world and the establishment of permanent links through a professional development study tour. The award is funded by the English Speaking Union and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

David's application was entitled: “Servicing Caribbean Studies – learning from United States experiences” and the objectives of this trip are to:

• Expand knowledge of major collections relating to Caribbean Studies in the United States,


• Make personal contact with United States librarians and archivists with Caribbean Studies responsibilities,


• Learn about current projects relating to Caribbean collections, in particular relating to collaboration and digitisation.

This blog will host some brief reports from David's study tour, as well as the usual mix of content.