The Information Society Information is power--for whom?
Recently, a young man came to the library where I work part time and asked to see me. I had never met the person in question before but readily granted his request. He told me that he had finished a three-year course in a college of information science and technology and was looking for a job. I politely explained to him that I was not in a position to help, the reason being that the library where I am working is run on a more or less voluntary basis: it receives no funding from anyone and the little money coming in from ad-hoc renting of rooms is hardly enough to pay the cleaners, the watchmen and an assistant.
After he left, I reflected on the situation of libraries in our country. This young men was not the first one to come to us for help: he is just one of the many who, having completed a course in information science or some other course along similar lines, are roaming our streets in search of work. And yet, this is the age when information-related jobs are in the ascendancy everywhere in the world. Then why are people trained in this area in Kenya not able to find work?
Could it be that libraries are no longer needed in the age of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) and that the young man was looking for a job in the wrong place? In fact, thinking about this, I remembered that, some years ago, someone had told me about a new university in the United States where they had decided to do without a library!
My mind went back to something that happened to me about two years ago when I had visited a former colleague at the UN complex in Gigiri. Having retired from the UN some years previously (after having been a librarian there for more than a decade) I still keep in touch with a number of people there. This particular person, a lawyer by profession, was also about to retire. He discussed with me his plans for a home in the countryside: he was interested in making the home environment-friendly. I informed him about a type of composting toilet that we ourselves had been using in our country home for years and offered to find the information for him in the UN-Habitat collection. In searching for the information, I had a cruel disappointment! The library on which I had laboured for twelve years and which was one of the best collections on human settlements in East Africa, had been dumped on a section of shelving in the UNEP library and was in complete disorder: there was nowhere I would be able to find the information that had been so carefully classified years before. What was worse: the electronic database containing the records could nowhere be found!
Unfortunately, I had experienced similar treatment of libraries before. Just before the turn of the century, I had either seen myself or heard about five libraries winding up in the space of two years!
Could all this really be part of a trend, a trend of phasing out libraries? If that is the case, should librarians start looking for other ways to make a living?
By no means! However, what is needed is a different type of library/resource centre or whatever you may wish to call it. And what is called for is a different type of librarian. Access to information for all is more than ever needed in this century that has been aptly named the century of the Information Society. Librarians should be trained to facilitate people’s access to information, whether by traditional means or by better use of modern means of communication. They should have an all-round education. Our emphasis has been too much on technical and skills training so that we have an oversupply of people at that level (hence the unemployed young man) and are short of indexers, information managers and people with analytical skills.
On the whole, libraries in Kenya are not up to par and are not ready for the electronic age. There is an enormous amount of local information to be organized in our country. But very few people seem to be concerned how and when and by whom this work will be done. We need to rethink our information policy, as well as the type of education needed for the age of electronic information.
Although the situation in Kenya is rather poor as far as access to information is concerned, there have always been exceptions to this rather bleak scene. In this issue we are giving a few examples of what can be done with enthusiasm, cooperation and some imagination. See the articles on the Kenya Information Preservation Society, and the “Making a difference” feature. The article on Community Radio is also an encouraging example: it shows how people can have control over and be empowered by the media; they need not be passive consumers.
To play an active part in the new knowledge-based Information Society is a big challenge to information providers. However, to give power to people by providing them with the kind of information that will make a difference in their quality of life can be a source of great satisfaction. Let all of us who are occupied with the provision of information–in whatever way–be eager to take up the challenge.