Transcript Assisting Afghanistan Academic Libraries

Assisting Afghanistan Academic Libraries
Atifa Rawan
University of Arizona
January 2011
University of Arizona Involvements/Activities
• Involved
since April of 2002 with rebuilding of Afghanistan academic
libraries infrastructures and the creation of Afghanistan Digital Libraries
efforts
• Assessment of academic Libraries in Kabul and Herat University Library
• The UAL faculty have provided consultations, assessments and trainings.
• Instrumental in the creation of first digital library in Afghanistan in the
College of Agriculture at Kabul University in June 2004 (with funding support
from the International Arid Lands Consortium)
• Consultant for “Books with Wings” – a project of Canadian institutions.
• From fall 2005 to December 2010 with funding support from the Afghan eQuality Alliances have provided training support and expanded the
Afghanistan Digital Libraries components
(http://www.afghandigitallibraries.org/).
Activities – cont.
• UAL negotiated free access to scholarly materials from various vendors, valued
over $300,000 per year for several years.
• Involvement in archiving and digitization projects - scanned and digitized the Da
Afghanistan Kalany (or Kalani) also known as the Salnamah-I Kabul from 19321990 (34 volumes -33,000 pages).
• With funding support from National Endowments for the Humanities (NEH), UAL
is working closely with ACKU in digitizing items mostly from the Jihad Period
(1989-2006) housed at ACKU in KU (http://www.afghandata.org/). Already
scanned and digitized 1,800 titles all accessible full-text worldwide. This
collection is also linked from the Afghanistan Digital Libraries –
(http://www.afghandata.org)
Goal and Outcomes of Digital Libraries
• The goal is to develop the capacity of Afghan librarians
(http://www.afghandigitallibraries.org/) to work with an open source
digital libraries’ platform, to catalog library resources, and to provide
open access to metadata, current content and educational materials
that all Afghanistan universities will share and will have wider access.
• The outcomes of our efforts are: 1) To build Afghanistan Digital
Libraries with several components; and 2) To provide necessary
trainings for library and IT staff
Why Digital Libraries?
• Destruction of tangible valuable historical collections
• Limited physical facilities
• Lack of skilled and professional staff
• Limited and outdated scholarly resources
• Lack of funding and support
Afghanistan Digital Libraries (http://www.afghandigitalibraries.org)
ACKU Digitization- http://www.afghandata.org
System-wide Sustainability Issues/Challenges
Academic public institutions in Afghanistan will not be able to sustain even their
existing services and access to information without sufficient and permanent funding
and endowment supports from both internal and external sources , short-term and
long-term strategic plans , ongoing needs assessment, replacing current staff by hiring
professional librarians and IT support staff in libraries, and creating a Library and
Information Science curriculum and program in the country.
Current Situation:
Resources –
•
Books with Wings
•
Asia Foundation
•
Other private donors
•
Access to limited scholarly and specialized databases
•
Total lack of funding
Challenges/issues – cont.
Staff –
•
Short-term trainings only for few provincial library staff
•
No long-term plans
•
Lack of professional staff
IT Infrastructure –
•
Lack of IT professionals in libraries
•
Lack of needed hardware/software
Preservation/Access –
•
Lack of preservation plans for physical and digital contents
•
Lack of funding
•
Lack of trained staff
•
Difficulty with internet access and connectivity
Facilities –
•
Inadequate physical facilities
•
No suitable facilities to preserve materials
Next Steps
• The UAL sub-contract funding with Afghan e-Quality Alliances ended in December
of 2010. The Afghanistan Digital Libraries’ program is now in a cross-point.
• In building the Afghanistan Digital Libraries, there have been many progress made
over the years. On the other hand, there are major infrastructure–level critical issues
such as human capacity that are not currently resolved for all of Afghanistan
academic institutions. Until such program is fully implemented in Afghanistan, there
is a strong need for collaboration in these areas.
• In order to continue to build a fully functional library infrastructure and to provide
library services in Afghanistan, these existing services should continue to be improved
and to be supported for at least 2 more years:
•Build human and infrastructure capacity and further onsite training in libraries
in Afghanistan
•All libraries should be fully utilizing all functions of the Integrated Library
System (ILS)
•Make use of available research and scholarly resources and introducing
information literacy
Next Steps – Cont.
• Address IT infrastructure needs and skills.
• Emphasis should be on a long-term goal - establish a Library and Information
Science certificate program to train future library and information science
professionals to meet the needs of all types of libraries in the country.
• Provide proficiency in English language and IT for Afghanistan academic
libraries’ staff.
• Create strategic goals for libraries
• Assess provincial academic libraries
• Secure permanent funding for library resources