Thursday July 11, 2013 – Module 8 Developing World Libraries
In my group we discussed a few of the following topics. The first topic was about grade level differences, as primary and secondary would often have different needs and demands in terms of their books (picture books, leveled reading materials, age appropriate novels, textbooks, and of course technology). For the next topic we explored the development of world libraries (via a diigo compilation). This brought about the debate of whether or not we were looking for libraries in the countries mother tongue or in English. I have yet to find an English section in a local library while travelling or living in most parts of Asia (mainland China, Macao, Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, and the Koreas). Brie however has a sister volunteering – teaching in Africa somewhere (the name eludes me – sorry) and they have two university – national libraries, but nothing else was mentioned for that country. We then moved onto the topic of whether these libraries in developing countries should be started off (infrastructure) and maintained in paper or digital (plastic). After this segway we then started to discuss the significance of world librarians on the context of our school libraries in terms of communicating, sharing, and exchanging information and possibly books and eBooks. We also talked about school level clusters and posted our discussion findings onto the forum. We then spent the last few minutes looking for articles on the topic…
http://www.worlib.org/index.shtml
http://www.publiclibraries.com/world.htm
The significance of world libraries in relation to my inquiry topic is rather unique as I am once again a fish in s strange pond, and I spend most of my year “over there” and not in BC Canada. Over the last ten years I have spent my life teaching in non-English speaking countries. Every country I have lived in or travelled to, has had it’s own unique sets of issues and successes.
Mainland China has an enormous population and a great value on reading and education. With China being open for business and tourism, the need to speak another language is growing. English is the most common second language studied, as that is where the money is coming from, and Japanese and Korean are close behind. Even though there are many English language schools popping up around the country, there is still little to no English book section in public libraries. The only time I saw English books in a library was in the International schools or the local bilingual schools. The public libraries have no English section and neither do the bookstores. As more expatriates are coming to live and work in China, in some of the more popular cities you may now be able to find one English bookstore. I found two in Guang Zhou last year in a city of fourteen million people! I cannot predict the future of Chinese libraries as they do not use the Dewey Decimal system for cataloguing their books, and they are severely restricted and censored by their government.
The same went for Ulaanbaatar Mongolia. All libraries are in the Mongolian language (which is written in Russian Cyrillic by the way). After two years in “UB” I bought my first Amazon Kindle (350$USD and only available in the USA then), a cover, and some books all for a meagre 500$USD! Mongolia is constantly in a state of flux and the money comes from “the west” (USA, Canada, Australia, UK), Germany, Korea, Russia, and Japan.
After two more years there, I moved to Phnom Penh Cambodia. The Khmer are rebuilding their country and there are libraries, but they are all in Khmer and in paper, as most people (80%) are extremely poor and do not have access to electricity for light or AC, never mind computer. Mobile phones are cheap and abundant, but the vast majority are not smart phones. Again the disparity between the few extremely wealthy families (5%), the struggling middle class (15%), and the majority of the poor prevents libraries from spreading and becoming digital. Local university textbooks are photocopied as well, to keep the cost as low as possible. When in Phnom Penh I was shocked to see used bookstores, which had started and spread from the backpackers coming in and out of the Indochine. I was also flabbergasted to see ONE English bookstore, courtesy of the expatriate community living in Phnom Penh (NGOs, UN for the Khmer Rouge trials, World Bank, WHO, UNESCO, and my IBO school). After two years my Kindle was now down to 200$USD and were now available world 2wide (for the most part).
Singapore has somehow maintained their English language skills from the colonial days and has an amazing “first world” public library system. In fact they have paper books in English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil, and Hindi! They are also now branching out into digital eBooks, and I will be exploring that once I return in August! There are also several bookstores throughout the island – country and all books are in above-mentioned languages. I cannot tell you how fantastic it is to go into a bookstore after all these years! In fact I tend to get overwhelmed and have to leave! Once I remember how to breathe, I go back and make a list of what I want to get for my Kindle!
Overall I have seen libraries in all shapes and sizes over the past ten years in several developing countries. My conclusion is that where there is a working middle class with disposable income, I am finding more libraries, more ICT, and more of the two combined.
Jennifer, this has been an interesting read about the state of Libraries in other countries. I have travelled in Central America in the past and was struck strongly by the lack of a reading culture. Young children are not exposed to reading at home and minimally at school due to a lack of resources and a mistrust of student use of books (they think they will wreck them and not return them so they don’t get lent out.) What kind of responsibility does the developed world have in putting reading materials in the hands of children in the developing world? This issue of what language to provide them in and the production of authentic stories within each country or culture is an issue. Do we send just money? Do we support specific initiatives? I was truly sad by the lack of enthusiasm about reading and learning and have looked into an organization called Librarians without Borders. Check it out: http://lwb-online.org What do you think?
Hiya Cherise!
I worked for a semester in Mexico and I too was shocked at how there was such a lack of “education culture.” Education and reading were not truly valued by the families I was dealing with. I taught at THE most posh school in Mexico City,and the parents sent their children there to meet other wealthy children (most – not all – as there are no absolutes). It was more for status than a genuine education. I was one of the few foreign teachers and non “Mexican – American” people on campus. We had the most amazing library I had ever seen and yet no one used it. When I brought my English classes in once a week, the librarians nearly fell over themselves! So were my students who had never had weekly reading before! Hence you could imagine how behind they were for Grade 7 students. After the initial shock of having to read and report on 100 pages a week, about 95% of the students were capable, happy, and inspired! Overall I don’t know enough about Latin America, but yes the lack of education, want of it, and making use of it frightens me…
You have a wide range of experience in international settings and it is interesting to read about the conditions of reading and libraries in the countries you have visited. It would be helpful to have a sense of how educators are responding to their local conditions and what efforts are being made to improve reading, educational opportunities, and access to information online. There is growing awareness that the use of cellular networks and smartphone technology could serve to bridge the digital divide in developing countries (or those recovering from the devastation of war). Another topic that came up in class was how we might connect with developing world libraries from the privileged position of relative informational wealth in the ‘developed’ world. In particular, how inquiry-based learning can foster new connections amongst school children toward building stable, thriving local social and living conditions.