When I worked in a university library in a poor developing country I
sometimes found myself processing rubbish donated books, which were really
of no use whatsoever. They’d been sent by various well-intentioned people
or organisations in the UK and elsewhere, but were so out of date or
inappropriate that I went to see the boss about it.
He explained that we had to process all of the donations, because it just
wouldn’t do for, say, pages from a discarded book with a ‘Donated by…’ stamp
in it to be found down at the market being used for fish wrapping, or being
sent to be pulped. We had to process all of the books, not just the useful
ones.
Book Aid International http://www.bookaid.org/ overcomes this issue by
giving the librarians in Africa control over donations. There’s no waste.
Books are not shipped out to Africa unless they are wanted there. The ones
that arrive have very little negative effect on the local book trade.
Roddy MacLeod
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>
> Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 12:03:59 +0000
> From: "Lindsay, John M" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: LIS-LINK Digest - 17 Dec 2010 to 18 Dec 2010 (#2010-302)
>
> It is strange, this business of recycling old books onto so called
> developing countries has been around for years, and with the development of
> new technologies, the whole thing has become stranger and stranger.
>
> I wonder how vast the literature now might be? A task for a 3rd year
> student?
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: A general Library and Information Science list for news and
> discussion. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of LIS-LINK
> automatic digest system
> Sent: 19 December 2010 00:00
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: LIS-LINK Digest - 17 Dec 2010 to 18 Dec 2010 (#2010-302)
>
> There are 2 messages totaling 28 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics of the day:
>
> 1. Book donations to developing countries (2)
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 00:38:09 +0000
> From: Johanna Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Book donations to developing countries
>
> I doubt anyone would want to spend money shipping biomedical books that are
> 10 years old to developing countries. People in developing countries
> generally need access to current knowledge. I would suggest recycling them.
>
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>
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