Image from Wiki Commons
When I dug a little further, I came across Library For All. This organization’s mission is to provide developing nations with the “tools to learn, dream and aspire to lift themselves out of poverty”. (Side note: Can developing nations really lift themselves out of poverty?) The concept that Library For All presents is an interesting one. They are “building a digital library and educational platform, designed for low bandwidth environments”. This library “will be stocked with millions of ebooks, course material and resources from publishers and Open Educational Resources”. The organization also wants the platform to be available on a variety of low cost devices. They say they have overcome many of the disadvantages of traditional book donations. By using their platform, information will be culturally and linguistically relevant and up to date.
Ian Quiellen, in an article he wrote about Library For All, says that this model differs from “just handing out sets of low-cost tablets and laptops” (2013). He says that often with those programs, users struggle to locate free content on the Internet (Quillen, 2013). Library For All will provide the content. I believe Library for All’s model is a great one that has room to grow. Library For All’s content is currently education texts and visuals and is focused on providing this information to teachers and students in a classroom setting. If this model is to be used for developing nation’s libraries, the content must be expanded. There needs to be other contributors to the program (besides Scholastic and Penguin) to ensure a variety of materials.
I think Library For All has a great idea that over time can be adapted to provide developing nations with a library platform that can be used on low bandwidth devices.
Library For All Intro Video from Library For All on Vimeo.
Works Cited
Library For All Intro Video on Vimeo [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/74216200
Quillen, I. (2013, June 18). Library for All: Free Digital Content for Developing Countries | MindShift. Retrieved February 21, 2014, from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/library-for-all-free-digital-content-for-developing-countries
Excellent find! Your blog post touches on some of the most important issues in this topic, from cast-offs, to development, to supporting and sharing with each other. I really like the LIbrary for All concept, and thinks its a great strategy for leveraging access to the internet into resources, especially in low bandwidth environments. Thank you for this!
This is an amazing program!!1 I found it as well during my search for this blog, and was pleased to see that they met their goal of $100k in July of 2013! It is a wonderful concept that is allowing a greater exposure for students in developing world libraries to literacy that they would not have had otherwise. I hope that this will be a project that continues and spreads to other developing nations!
It is amazing the potential of technology and the difference it can make. You make an important point that Library for All will provide content as oppose to just handing out tablets. It is great that they have the support of the six of the top ten publishers.
Your comment about the used books reminded me that the previous TL at our school sent extra books like, “Because of Mr. Terupt” to a sister school in our district. I will have to look into that.
I find it interesting how we all try to recycle our books. Is this “reduce, reuse, recycle” interest part of what makes someone choose to be a librarian, and not just a love of books?
In a French-immersion school the first place we recycle books is into the classrooms, because French language books are more expensive and difficult to find locally. Next I have a used book sale for students and parents, which includes donations from families. Then really only the very odd ones are left and it is easy to throw them into paper recycling.
I am very inspired by all of these campaigns and projects taking place in developing countries. I am going to do more research in to low bandwidth communities. We take for granted high speed internet and its amazing how many people complain about slow internet connections when millions of people around the world don’t have any access to the internet. This video was very touching. Leisbet has a good point too about what we do with the books we weed out.