“What Africa's Lubuto Library Project Can Teach Us.”

“What Africa's Lubuto Library Project Can Teach Us.” Anthony Bernier, Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Science, San Jose State University, July 11, 2012. This year's Humphry/OCLC/Forest Press Award for International Librarianship was given to the president of Africa's Lubuto Library Project, Jane Meyers, at the American Library Association's 2012 annual conference in San Diego, for a lifetime of achievement. Presumably we confer awards because exemplary work inspires us to new heights. To what heights does Ms. Meyers' work, particularly with Lubuto, beckon us? Meyers and the Lubuto Library Project deserve recognition because together they imagine a world nearly upside down from the one we commonly inhabit. The project's vision does not seek first to provide library service to impoverished African street youth. It seeks first to build community with and among them. Everything else comes second.