I have to admit, when I was offered the opportunity to help with the Digital Library Initiative, I had very little idea what I was getting into. A digital library sounded like a nice idea. . . From experience, I certainly understood the exorbitant prices of textbooks, and I could only imagine the costs of trying to obtain them in Africa! But until I arrived at Ilembula’s library and was able to talk with the students and staff, who each hold such strong motivation for learning but lack access to these resources for obtaining an education and professional skills, I had no idea what incredible opportunities it could bring to a community.
We allowed ourselves a five day stay in the community in order to complete the digital library setup and to help the students and staff become familiar with using and maintaining it by themselves. While I am not much help with all of the technology, I was able to focus on documenting the process of setting up the library and helping create and conduct preliminary surveys to get an idea of the students’ expectations. To me, this was really eye-opening.
The students were very nervous as they first came in to meet us. I soon realized that they saw this as kind of a test of their English, and their computer skills, which was not at all what we had intended it to be. With only a couple of computers in the whole school, and very few of them connected to the Internet, most of the schoolwork is done by hand, and many students were not familiar with using computer programs or typing very much. We could tell in this, not only did the students need access to a more recent and deeper source of information, they needed a reason to come into the computer lab and to dedicate the extra time it would take to build computer skills.
So, after two days of set-up and installation, we decided to dedicate the remaining time to training students, staff, and administrators to be able to use the computers and their new content comfortably. At first we could tell that they were very nervous, again. But as they became familiar with the steps to search for the content, they started to realize how much material was now right at their fingertips. The library contains around 40,000 freely available EBooks, video tutorials, and audio lectures on all subjects, without requiring access to the Internet. I was absolutely floored by everything they were finding—very much like an artificial Internet!
On our second and third days of monitoring, we came in to find the computers already started, and students searching for materials on their own. They were comfortable using and maintaining the system on their own, which was so wonderful to see! Without much need for us to do anything, we brainstormed possible ways to continue to share the content with more communities, and to set up even more resilient systems that would be accessible during a power outage (using laptops, for instance). I am so hopeful that the new library in Ilembula, and this model as it expands in the future, will not only make such resources more accessible to these communities, but will help students become more confident and familiar with using computers and building professional skills.
We allowed ourselves a five day stay in the community in order to complete the digital library setup and to help the students and staff become familiar with using and maintaining it by themselves. While I am not much help with all of the technology, I was able to focus on documenting the process of setting up the library and helping create and conduct preliminary surveys to get an idea of the students’ expectations. To me, this was really eye-opening.
The students were very nervous as they first came in to meet us. I soon realized that they saw this as kind of a test of their English, and their computer skills, which was not at all what we had intended it to be. With only a couple of computers in the whole school, and very few of them connected to the Internet, most of the schoolwork is done by hand, and many students were not familiar with using computer programs or typing very much. We could tell in this, not only did the students need access to a more recent and deeper source of information, they needed a reason to come into the computer lab and to dedicate the extra time it would take to build computer skills.
So, after two days of set-up and installation, we decided to dedicate the remaining time to training students, staff, and administrators to be able to use the computers and their new content comfortably. At first we could tell that they were very nervous, again. But as they became familiar with the steps to search for the content, they started to realize how much material was now right at their fingertips. The library contains around 40,000 freely available EBooks, video tutorials, and audio lectures on all subjects, without requiring access to the Internet. I was absolutely floored by everything they were finding—very much like an artificial Internet!
On our second and third days of monitoring, we came in to find the computers already started, and students searching for materials on their own. They were comfortable using and maintaining the system on their own, which was so wonderful to see! Without much need for us to do anything, we brainstormed possible ways to continue to share the content with more communities, and to set up even more resilient systems that would be accessible during a power outage (using laptops, for instance). I am so hopeful that the new library in Ilembula, and this model as it expands in the future, will not only make such resources more accessible to these communities, but will help students become more confident and familiar with using computers and building professional skills.