When I began exploring library projects in developing nations the majority of my results were organizations raising funds for book purchases or for organizations collecting weeded/discarded books. I understand that many of the books we weed are actually quality books that we have duplicates of. For instance, last year our school library had four copies of “Because of Mr. Terupt” because it had been a previous contender in our Book of the Year contest. Now that the votes were in and a winner selected, circulation had decreased, we really only needed one copy. As these books were up to date and were in great condition, they could potentially have been donated. The encyclopedias I weeded that were from 1992 are another story. If they aren’t good enough for our students, why are they good enough for someone else’s students?

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