Restoring the importance of libraries: ‘It doesn’t all have to be big books all the time’
The people you’re serving, serve them in the areas that they need service”
Most libraries in African communities are going extinct. To address this issue Dr Nkem Osuigwe a renowned librarian speaks to Inspiring Open’s Betty Kankam-Boadu on what librarians can do to salvage the situation.
Dr. Nkem Osuigwe’s first experience of the magic of a library was at the tender age of five, when her mother left her with the local librarian to go to the market during a civil war in Amanbra, Nigeria.
On that fateful day, the librarian told the children gathered a story about the competition between the sun and the wind. Five-year-old Dr. Osuigwe was in awe of the way the story was told and it “opened my own eyes to possibilities outside of the things that I’ve known. That there are greater things that one can experience, all within the pages of a book. And that’s how I fell in love with it.”
The impressions she took away with her that day lasted, so at age fifteen she came back to the same library and worked there for 35 years rising through the ranks to become head of the library. One of her favorite memories at the library was reading to the children during the early stages of her career.
“There was a time that people will drop their kids as young as maybe one-and-a-half years. They could walk, not talk well, but when you read stories to them everywhere will goes quiet like that, and they’ll be watching your mouth, watching your hands, and it’s like as if you are everything right there and then. It’s as if you’re creating a new world for them.” Dr. Osuigwe recalls.”
Now, she spends her time creating powerful connections between librarians and other stakeholders aimed at furthering the cause of the library and information sector in Africa through AFLIA, the African Library and Information Associations and Institutions. Their work is cut out for them — equitable access to information and knowledge for all.
She strongly believes that libraries are more than books on shelves and the power they hold to impact, tell and preserve the history of communities remains untapped in Africa.
Libraries traditionally provided a free access to books and a quiet place to read. With the advent of the digital age, many community libraries have been forced to shut down because resources are no longer directed to this sector.
In developed countries, public libraries are evolving to take on new functions such as offering causes on technology, innovation and entrepreneurship among others. Same however cannot be said of most libraries in Africa.
Dr. Osuigwe argues that while some people have access to the internet to find information, there are still “in entire Africa that cannot afford the data for internet, do not have the skills to navigate the internet well, do not know where to source for opportunities online and the library is always there to help them to do that. In some communities, the library may be the only place where you can get almost free or very cheap internet.”
She adds that “libraries are mainly funded by governments, and governments are interested in institutions that generate revenue. Libraries do not do that.” Making the it an uphill battle getting people to understand that libraries are still needed to bridge the access to information gap.
Despite this challenge she and her team at AFLIA are not giving on their mission. She wants librarians to go beyond being disseminators of information, to information leaders in their different countries, telling the stories of their communities on a global platform hence their partnership with Wikipedia to train African librarians to use and contribute to the Wikipedia platform “to ensure that the librarians in Africa understand what free knowledge is all about, and the role they have to play in ensuring that that free knowledge that is out there is real, relevant, accurate, according to what they know, at least about their communities, the people there and the stuff that they do.”
Dr. Osuigwe wants libraries to be deliberate about addressing the exclusion of women from history too. She describes women as “the silent scaffolding that holds the building up” yet they are mostly written out of history.
She wants librarians to be fully involved in the collection of today’s events in their communities which will be history tomorrow.
According to Dr. Osuigwe, libraries being underfunded should not be an excuse for librarians to also check out as there are little thing that can be done to change the lives of the people in the communities.
Don’t depend on government all the time. The people you’re serving, serve them in the areas that they need service, they need information,” Dr, Osuigwe says. “It doesn’t all have to be big books all the time. It doesn’t all have to be shiny computers all the time. This is Africa, and we need to serve our people the things that they want… So that’s what we are telling libraries, serve your communities where they are. Don’t look for highfalutin ideas.”
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