One of the things I have discovered since I began working in international development is that many, many development projects deal with information issues. It’s not surprising – information is the issue of our time. What is surprising is how few librarians are involved. Development professionals know their stuff, and they’re running great projects. What’s happening, though, is that people are reinventing library services.
The Question Box project that’s being piloted in India and Uganda is, at its core, a reference service. As far as I can tell, no librarians were involved in developing this project. Now, of course I’m not saying that no one should address an information need without first consulting a librarian. I’m all for creative people finding creative solutions to problems. But librarians have been thinking about information issues for an awfully long time, and I know we could make significant contributions towards finding those creative solutions.
The question is, how do we get a seat at the table? You might guess from the title of this post that I’m not going to recommend sitting around and moaning that no one ever asks for our advice. We need to get out there and offer our advice. We have significant expertise when it comes to solving information problems, and we shouldn’t be shy about sharing it.
I know many librarians are involved with IRRT, IFLA, and other independent library development projects. But I don’t know a lot of librarians who have stepped outside the library circle to engage directly with development professionals. It seems to me that we need to solidify a new branch of librarianship – a fusion between librarianship and development.
When I was considering going for a masters I debated between library science and international development. I even know someone who went after both degrees – by pursuing an MLS at Simmons and a masters in international affairs at Tufts (simultaneously, mind you). Why not have a full-on dual-degree program that would produce international development librarians (or information specialists, if you prefer) who would have a solid grounding in both fields?
Meaghan,
Great comments and continuing the call to action!
Deborah
Great post! I’ve been wondering exactly the same thing (I mused a bit on my blog here http://bit.ly/1ejQgt). There is a lot of opportunity for bridging the library and ICT and development worlds. At the same time, there will be some countries where this will be easier to achieve than others. In our 25 country study of public access landscapes, in Uganda (one of the countries where Question Box operates), we found that out of a total of 30 public libraries only 3 had ICT. This compares to 140 telecenters and thousands of cybercafes. But this shouldn’t hold us back from finding opportunities to connect libraries with the organizations in the development community, and vice-versa.
Hear! Hear! God, I can think of so many examples: health information (best practices for practitioners, info for target groups), resource centres for economic growth project, agricultural extension (so all info does not come from folks selling seeds and chemicals), democracy and governance — how to participate… endless.
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Hey Meaghan,
I’m glad you brought this topic up and I completely understand your internal struggle between choosing an MLIS program and international development. There are lots of opportunities for international outreach in IFLA, SRRT, IRRT, etc… but not as much focus on the master’s lever. But it can be done — I’m working on both right now: an MLIS from UNC with a certification in international development.
http://sils.unc.edu/programs/certificates/intldev.html
~Hannah
http://globallibrarianship.wordpress.com/
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