Putting things in perspective

I just got an email from my nephew, Tim, who is just finishing up two years with the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso. He cannot open this blog on the computer in his village, something he says is not surprising because "There is always something wrong with technology over here." Those of us in developed countries take so much for granted, basic services such as water, utilities, and broadband access among them. Tim used to be in a much smaller village (a two hour bike ride away) and considers himself lucky to have spent the last year where he is for many reasons, one being intermittent Internet access at a local cafe.

I lived in Korea back in the late 1970s as a Peace Corps volunteer, then a graduate student, and finally a working stiff. I taught at a university and cut my dittos and reproduced them by hand. It was easy and cheap to get a hold of printed publications and music because copyright was pretty much ignored. Libraries, when they existed at all, were pretty dreary places. Last year when I returned to give a paper at the IFLA Conference I was amazed at the transformation that had taken place in twenty-five years. Koreans have better and cheaper access to the Internet than people in the U.S. Bookstores there were filled with publications in many languages and it was easy but expensive to get more books for Laura, my voracious reader of a daughter.

At the IFLA Conference I attended a session where a number of Africans presented and spoke of libraries filled with discarded books that had no relevance to the local populations. The books were donated by westerners who were more intent on clearing off their shelves than in providing reading materials that would engage African readers. They spoke of the tremendous challenges of literacy education and inadequate Internet access.

We live in a world where information is a commodity valued in the marketplace. Companies hold on to their intellectual property and corporate intelligence tightly as they vie for a dominant market share. Yet information/content also can be magical on an individual level. Reading and access to the world of printed matter, audio and video content have the power to transform a person's life. Today that access is increasingly via the Internet. The United States Government, in an attempt to increase efficiency and reduce costs, has stopped printing many documents and only offers digital versions. We do not have to go around the world to small villages in underdeveloped countries to find inequities in information access. Citizens of the United States confront many of the same problems as Tim if they live in rural areas. It's a sad story.