CBC Radio Canada International interviewed Jessica Luet, former Chair of the LWB-University of Western Ontario committee, about the Costa Rican library initiative that the group led last academic year. In this six minute interview, which was broadcast internationally, Jessica speaks about recent work in the rainforest village of El Humo, Costa Rica. The interviewer remarks on the efficacy of these LWBers — helping to build a library literally from the ground up in less than two weeks — and jokingly recommends LWB for any renovation project! Enjoy listening to this story.
Also in the news, former LWB-McGill students Carolyn Doi and Valli Fraser-Celin published “Encouraging a Culture of Literacy in Guatemala: McGill Librarians Without Borders & the Asturias Academy Library Partnership” in the August bulletin of L’Association des bibliothécaires du Québec Library Association. Here is the introduction from their article:
In April 2010 eleven student members of Librarians Without Borders (LWB) McGill traveled to Guatemala to the mountainous region of Quetzaltenango, the second largest city in that country. Our reason for going: the Asturias Academy Library Project. Our ten day trip was packed with library work, cultural excursions, and endless learning opportunities. Most importantly, we worked in collaboration with the Angel Miguel Asturias Academy to shape a vision and create an action plan for their library, which is currently under construction. This was a project of firsts: not only were we the first group of library students from McGill to embark on an international service trip of this kind, we were also Asturias Academy’s first visitors from Canada!
The work of Librarians Without Borders students at the University of Western Ontario made the news today! Read about the school library that they successfully helped to build from the ground up in the small, rural community of El Humo, Costa Rica.
Particular mention is given to the group of volunteers who went to Costa Rica: Jessica Luet, Courtney Lundrigan, Megan Thomas, Kristina Porr, Erin Walker, Debby Ng, Kris Meen, Jessica Kipp, Aubrey Kirkpatrick and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies staff member Steve Patterson.
In late spring, a young student from the newly-formed humanitarian club at William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate Institute in Toronto contacted LWB, looking for a way to support one of our projects. The club is known as The World at Large.
LWB connected them with Take a Stand For Kids (T.A.S.K), the grassroots non-profit that our University of British Columbia committee has been working with over the last year. T.A.S.K works with children, families, and the community of Santa Rosa del Peñon, Nicaragua.
The enterprising World at Large quickly mobilized and held a fundraiser, raising $275 CAD in support of a Nicaraguan library. Given that it was the end of the school year, when most students are dreaming of summer vacation, their accomplishment is to be congratulated even more!
We at LWB are delighted at the excitement and energy that these young philanthropists brought to the project and hope to continue to support this club next year in their fundraising efforts towards the TASK library.
Image courtesy of World at Large. Check out their website, it’s fun!
Calling all Librarians Without Borders supporters!
Are you attending ALA in DC at the end of June? If so, meet up with other library professionals with similar interests for dinner/lunch and conversation. Visit the Facebook event page to RSVP and discuss your availability.
From September 2009 to April 2010, the Librarians Without Borders
student committee at UWO and Central American partner organization
VIDA, undertook a project to build a school library for the rural
village of El Humo, Costa Rica. In April, ten LWB members travelled to
Costa Rica for two weeks to physically construct and set up the
library. They’re back and ready to share their experiences. LWB
members will speak not only about their experiences in Costa Rica but
also about the planning, organizing, collection developing, all around
hard work behind the project.
Please join us:
Wednesday, June 9 from 12:00-1:00 in NCB 293
Refreshments will be served.
McGill’s LWB Student Committee has put their final report for Miguel Angel Asturias Academy online.
View their blog post and the final report!
You might want to follow the University of Western Ontario’s Librarians Without Borders student committee on their new website and blog:
http://uwo-lwb.blogspot.com/
The Librarians Without Borders UWO student committee will be hosting Kate Johnson for the first speaker event of the semester!
Kate Johnson will be giving a presentation focusing on the state of libraries in Mongolia and the challenges of developing library services in a former communist country. She will also discuss her experience of working as a United Nations Volunteer.
Kate Johnson is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Information and Media Studies. She is currently researching the social role of public libraries, particularly whether libraries contribute to the social capital of communities. She completed her dissertation research on the information seeking behavior of residents of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
The event will take place on Wednesday, May 26th at 4:30 PM in NCB 285.
For more information, contact lwbatuwo@gmail.com
A new update from the McGill Guatemala team:
After all our hard work at Asturias, the group put together an amazing manual of recommendations for the future school library. We included recommendations on space lay out, shelving, mock-ups, programming, collection development and cataloguing.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010, 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm
Over the last year, Librarians Without Borders‘ Student Committees have been involved in a number of local and international information access projects. LWB has undertaken these projects in order to improve access to information for the people in these communities. Specifically, LWB students have been engaged in a number of projects to build libraries in Canada, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.
To celebrate the accomplishments of our students, Librarians Without Borders is pleased to partner with CLA-CASLIS to offer an evening program in Ottawa, where representatives of various student committees will be talking about their work.
Please join us! Come learn about their amazing projects and hear how MLIS students are helping to put information in the hands of the world!
Speakers:
LWB-McGill Committee: Valli Fraser-Celin and Carolyn Doi
LWB-University of Toronto Committee: Mark Gelsomino
LWB-University of Western Ontario Committee: Erin Walker, Aubrey Kirkpatrick, and Kris Meen
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When: Wednesday, May 19, 2010, 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm
Where: Ottawa Public Library Auditorium (120 Metcalfe St)
Admission: By donation (suggested amount: $5 – $10).
Donors will have the chance to win a copy of Three Cups of Tea and Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson!
All proceeds from this event will go to Librarians Without Borders
Register at http://tinyurl.com/lwb-2010
For more information, contact exec@lwb-online.org or caslis.govlib@gmail.com
News | Melanie Sellar September 5, 2010 | 
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