Rural Community Libraries in Africa

Dr. Valeda Dent is currently Dean and Chief Operating Officer for the Long Island University Libraries in New York. She previously served as Associate University Librarian for Research and Instructional Services at Rutgers University and as Project Director for the eLib/JISC MALIBU digital library project in London, United Kingdom. She holds an M.S.W. and M.I.L.S. from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from the Palmer School at Long Island University. Her research interests include information literacy, rural libraries in Africa and related literacy and reading habits and ethnographic approaches to understanding the user experience. She has published two books, Keeping the User in Mind: Instructional Design and the Modern Library (2009) and Qualitative Research and the Modern Library (2011). She is the author of numerous articles and has been published in journals such as Library Hi Tech, New Library World, Libri, and Oral Traditions. Valeda's longitudinal research on rural village libraries in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa has spanned more than eight years. Valeda and her husband, Dr. Geoff Goodman, have been selected as Fulbright Scholars for 2014 and will spend almost a year in Uganda continuing their study of the rural village library. In her spare time, Valeda enjoys spending time with her husband and daughter Carlyn.
Geoff Goodman, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology at Long Island University. He is also a licensed clinical and school psychologist with 21 years of experience treating children and adolescents as well as adults. He is certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) and is certified as both an adult and a child and adolescent psychoanalyst and Fellow of the International Psychoanalytical Association (FIPA). Dr. Goodman received a Bachelor of Science degree from M.I.T. in 1983, a Master of Arts degree in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University in 1986, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Clinical Psychology from Northwestern University in 1991. Dr. Goodman is the author of many articles on the development of psychopathology in high-risk infants, children and adults. He has published five books: The Internal World and Attachment (The Analytic Press, 2002), Transforming the Internal World and Attachment (Vols. 1 and 2, Jason Aronson, 2010), Therapeutic Attachment Relationships (Jason Aronson, 2010), and Daddy's Secret Cedar Chest (Tate Publishing, 2013). In 2013, Dr. Goodman was awarded the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship by the US Department of State, which he and wife Valeda Dent will use to continue their literacy acquisition research on rural Ugandan preschool children and their caregivers and teach at Uganda Martyrs University.

Michael Kevane is an Associate Professor in the Economics Department at Santa Clara University. Recent research focuses on the importance of libraries in promoting reading and the impacts on societies of a reading public, with articles published in academic journals such as Libri, World Libraries and Bulletin des Bibliotheques de France. He is the author of Women and Development in Africa: How Gender Works (Lynne Rienner, 2004). He has also published research articles on the performance of agrarian institutions and markets in Africa in journals such as World Development, Review of Development Economics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and Africa. He is co-editor of a book, Kordofan Invaded: Peripheral Incorporation and Social Transformation in Islamic Africa (Brill, 1998). He is past President of the Sudan Studies Association, and co-director of Friends of African Village Libraries, a non-profit he co-founded in 2001 that has established numerous village libraries in rural Africa.

Around the word, in developed as well as developing countries, libraries play an important role in the dissemination of knowledge. The availability of information resources can often mean the difference between poverty and prosperity, particularly in underdeveloped African communities. Rural Community Libraries in Africa: Challenges and Impacts investigates the relationship between local libraries and community development. From the historical roots of rural libraries to their influence on the literacy, economy, and culture of the surrounding region, this book will present academics, researchers, and, most importantly, librarians with crucial insight into the tangible benefits of rural community libraries and the obstacles they must overcome.