Democracy, Literacy and Poverty: “Can Text Messages Bring the Academic Library to African Civic Leaders?”

Abstract

In the spring of 2009, our Canadian team of 2 Librarians and a professor, s, a professor anpent a month in Africa collaborating with Tanzanian academics to understand the information environment of villagers at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro where 3 years of drought was hitting families hard. We were working with our Tanzanian counterparts on the initial stages of developing a way to ensure that remote communities can have access to information related to government services and entitlements. Although this may seem a stretch for an academic librarian, maintaining access to information is at the core of librarianship.