Community Knowledge Centers for Liberia: meeting Africa's millennium goals through a unique collaboration of communities, universities, libraries, and schools for Liberia's economic and social development
| Pages | 6-11 |
| Date | 14 October 2013 |
| Published date | 14 October 2013 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-07-2013-0045 |
| Author | Martin A. Kesselman,Connie Wu,Laura Palumbo,James Simon,Hector Rodolfo Juliani,Richard Rowe |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology |
1. Background
Liberia is at the crossroads. Still
recovering from a protracted civil war,
there is inadequate education, high
illiteracy rates particularly for women
and where the population is 90 percent
food insecure. Libraries are non-existent
outside of universities at which libraries
are woefully inadequate. Through
various initiatives Rutgers University
and others are w orking to help d evelop
a twenty-first century workforce in the
country. However, a twenty-first century
workforce requires access to twenty-first
century information and libraries play an
essential role. The focus on libraries is
being developed on several fronts.
Although several initiatives are taking
place, each of these is a thread that
together can form a fabric of hope for a
country with extreme poverty yet rich in
natural resources. Each of these threads
focusonmeetingtheUN’s2015
millennium goals but for these
programs to be successful, libraries are
essential to weaving these threads
together. A multipronged approach is
needed to build an information free way
for Liberia that includes access to
information resources either via the
internet or a library in a box or library
in a flash (on a flash drive), tablets,
smartphones and other mobile devices,
skilled professionals in agriculture and
engineering and libraries and librarians.
A. Geographical, agricultural,
engineering, and economic context
Geography, engineering and
agriculture information are intertwined.
If you cannot build adequate roads,
farmers cannot get their produce to
markets. Natural resources and
geographical data are quite pertinent to
the current conditions of the economy of
Liberia. From the US Department of
State web site, Liberia is rich in natural
resources. According to this source,
there are three geographical areas:
Mangrove swamps and beaches along the
coast, wooded hills and semi deciduous
shrub lands along the immediate interior,
and dense tropical forests and plateaus in
the interior. Liberia has 40 percent of
West Africa’s rain forest (Bureau of
African Affairs, 2011).
The annual average rainfall in Liberia is
2,391 mm (94 00):
Although this is much higher than the
quantity of water required for crop growth,
an acute water deficit is experienced
anyway during a three to five month
period, particularly in the uplands (Water
Profile of Liberia, 2011).
According to US Department of State
data, agriculture accounted for
61 percent of the gross domestic
product (GDP) in 2009. Primary
agricultural products are listed as
coffee, cocoa, sugarcane, rice, cassava,
palm oil, bananas, plantains,
citrus, pineapple, sweet potatoes, corn
and vegetables. The remaining non-
agricultural industries are rubber,
diamonds, gold, iron ore, forestry,
beverages, and construction. The
primary non-agricultural product is
rubber, which in 2009 produced
$148 million in trade exports:
The Liberian economy relied heavily on
the mining of iron ore and on the export of
natural rubber prior to the civil war.
Liberia was a major exporter of iron ore
on the world market (Bureau of African
Affairs, US Department of State, 2011).
During the civil war, which lasted from
1989 until 2003, production of iron ore
stopped, and timber and diamond
exports from Liberia were banned
by the United Nations. These
sanctionswereliftedin2006and
2007, respectively (Bureau of African
Affairs, 2011).
The US Department of State projects
that Liberia’s economy will continue its
current rate of modest growth in the
coming years:
The country’s revenues come primarily
from rubber exportsand revenues from its
maritime registry program. Liberia’s
US-owned and operated shipping and
corporate registry (LISCR) is the world’s
second largest.Its Liberian-flagged vessels
carry more than one-third of US-imported
oil. There is increasing interest in the
possibility of commercially exploitable
offshore crude oil deposits along
Liberia’s Atlantic Coast (Bureau of
African Affairs, US Department of State,
2011).
6
Library Hi Tech News
Number 8 2013, pp. 6-11, qEmerald Group Publishing Limited, 0741-9058, DOI 10.1108/LHTN-07-2013-0045
Community Knowledge Centers for Liberia:
meeting Africa’s millennium goals through
a unique collaboration of communities,
universities, libraries, and schools for Liberia’s
economic and social development
Martin A. Kesselman, Connie Wu, Laura Palumbo, James Simon,
Hector Rodolfo Juliani and Richard Rowe
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