TECHNOLOGY: UN Pledges to Set the African Virtual Library in Motion

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, May 16 2003 (IPS) - Every computer equipped to play C-Roms or with access to the Internet is a "virtual library," where the world’s knowledge can be downloaded for enquiring users.

But Africa’s governmental, private sector and civil society groups devoted to education development are creating a system of virtual libraries to vastly expand available knowledge on the continent.

"The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is surveying university libraries and research centres throughout Africa as the basis for a virtual library system. We’re starting where the knowledge and data now is, before we can disseminate it to the multitudes of information-hungry Africans," Karima Bounemra Ben Soltane, an Ethiopian and the director of the Development Information Services Division of ECA, said in an interview with IPS.

A United Nation’s enterprise, ECA is based in Ethiopia’s capital, which this week hosted the third biennial meeting of the Committee on Development Information (CODI III). Hundreds of experts involved in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) debated how best to bring the wealth of information available on-line to the masses of Africans who are at present sidelined from the Information Superhighway.

"Africa should not miss out on development opportunities presented by the information revolution," K.Y. Amoako, the ECA Executive Secretary, told delegates.

One way forward is to take the concept of the traditional library, where rooms of books are available to readers, and transform it digitally for electronic transmission to millions of users in areas too sparsely populated or too poor to create traditional "brick and paper" libraries themselves.

A delegate from Congo raised the concern, "We seem to be moving too fast on information technology when we still need to address Africa’s basic needs, like electricity (to run computers)."

However, optimistic officials from Africa’s governments and information NGOs stressed a "can do" philosophy.

"A virtual library can be as simple as a computer with Internet access by way of a telephone line, operated with a petrol-powered generator if there is no electricity, at a rural community centre where people from all around can come to seek information they need," said Bounemra Ben Soltane.

Through virtual libraries, students can learn of school admissions and scholarships to further their education, and apply electronically. Farmers can learn of weather forecasts and crop planting and management advise that is prepared by their countries’ agricultural ministries. Community development projects can find funding information from international donor institutions.

"In a region like ours, where computers and other knowledge technologies are beyond the reach of most people, virtual libraries have made possible the delivery of knowledge and information to the masses," said Amoako. Knowledge is key to economic and political empowerment of people on the grass-roots level, and in the case of impoverished Africa can mean basic survival.

"One of the biggest challenges faced by Africans is lack of knowledge. This is another kind of war, because people are dying. They are dying because they don’t have access to information," information specialists Aida Opokua-Mensal told IPS.

But even virtual libraries are not enough to impart information to all Africans, simply because of the expense involved and the immediate need for knowledge that cannot be instantly fulfilled by a developing virtual library system.

"The mass media is crucial, because newspapers and radio, which reach most people, provide an easy, accessible and cheap means of carrying information from the Worldwide Web to users," said Opokua-Mensal.

Several dozen top journalists who specialize in ICT reporting joined the CODI III conference to learn how the mass media can be a link between virtual libraries and large numbers of news consumers.

For the future, general knowledge and updated data may be spread throughout Africa through an innovation called the African Virtual Library and Information Network (AVLIN). An outgrowth of the last CODI meeting, the network will amass information, and make is easy to access to users of the network, which will be continent-wide.

"One of the problems of trying to find information you desire on the Internet is that it may require literally hours of browsing through web sites to get what you need. This is unacceptably expensive in terms of telephone line usage for private or community centre Internet users. AVLIN will not only have information, but will make it easy to find," Benjamin Akuetteh of Ghana told IPS.

Widespread dissemination of knowledge can even rewrite the social order, creating new groups of people in "virtual communities," felt Amoako.

"People no longer have to live together in a particular locality, at the same time, to form a community. People who have access to the right ICT tools can now participate in most of the activities of communities. People separated from space and time can communicate with each other, and strategise on issues of common interest. For these virtual communities, it is the act of participation that determines membership, rather than some quality or thought, and shared knowledge is the cement," he said.

Amoako said that virtual communities are now playing a role in sustaining democracy in countries where they have formed, by passing on information about government and encouraging grassroots participation in developmental projects. Virtual libraries provide the data required to keep abreast of events.

Presently, the ECA is providing seed money to set the African Virtual Library and Information Network in motion. But organisers insist the initiative must be self-sustaining, by finding funding from governments and through partnerships with private enterprises, such as publishing houses and media groups.