LibrarianActivist.org

From an article in La Voz del Interior (Cordoba, Argentina), it is reported that the 200 popular libraries in the province may close from lack of funding. The Federacion de Bibliotecas Populares de la provincia de Cordoba (Febipo) has been been fighting for 11 years to get a law passed that would divert a part of the profits from lotery sales to support libraries. This fight has been, as of yet, without success.

The 200 libraries have approximately 100,000 patrons. They presently receive some funds (3000-8000 pesos a year) from the Comision Nacional de Bibliotecas Populares (Conabip). But that does not cover all expenses, least of all book buying. Most of the books they receive are donated and don’t really correspond to patron wants and needs. The librarians (if they can afford one), are paid about 700 pesos a month (about 230$US), barely enough to get by if it’s the librarian’s sole income.

Open Access and the Internet are a sure way of getting vital medical information to health professionals in disadvantaged areas. But when there’s no Internet access, open access to scientific literature is useless.

Unfortunately, there are still many areas in the developing world that have neither computers nor a reliable electricity supply. Thus, in spite of the rapid development of information and communications technologies, the gap between “the haves and have-nots” continues to blight isolated areas (those outside a capital city). In these areas, the appropriate solution to information access is still printed material. In response to this need for printed health information, WHO librarians created the Blue Trunk Library (BTL) project.

(…)

The BTL is “a ready-to-use documentation module” (…) of about 150 WHO and non-WHO books and manuals [and 3 or 4 subscriptions to medical journals] fitted into a blue metal trunk (…) . The materials are arranged and filed in such a way that users can easily identify the ones that they need. Fourteen topics have been chosen using a basic classification code, e.g., General Medicine and Nursing (100), Community Health (110), and these codes are written on each filing box.

Read all about it in PLOS Medicine. My first thought was that seeing the rapidity with which health information changes, do the BTL’s need to be weeded and renewed? It was answered in this article (PDF):

A procedure for keeping WHO publications up to date has been established, together with monitoring and evaluation of the operation of the Blue Trunk libraries locally by a national coordinator, with the support of the office of the WHO Representative.

[Source: Boing Boing]