Assisting Afghanistan Academic Libraries

1. Assisting Afghanistan Academic Libraries Atifa Rawan University of Arizona January 2011

2. University of Arizona Involvements/Activities • Involved since April of 2002 with rebuilding of Afghanistan academic libraries infrastructures and the creation of Afghanistan Digital Libraries efforts • Assessment of academic Libraries in Kabul and Herat University Library • The UAL faculty have provided consultations, assessments and trainings. • Instrumental in the creation of first digital library in Afghanistan in the College of Agriculture at Kabul University in June 2004 (with funding support from the International Arid Lands Consortium) • Consultant for “Books with Wings” – a project of Canadian institutions. • From fall 2005 to December 2010 with funding support from the Afghan e-Quality Alliances have provided training support and expanded the Afghanistan Digital Libraries components (http://www.afghandigitallibraries.org/).

3. Activities – cont. • UAL negotiated free access to scholarly materials from various vendors, valued over $300,000 per year for several years. • Involvement in archiving and digitization projects - scanned and digitized the Da Afghanistan Kalany (or Kalani) also known as the Salnamah-I Kabul from 1932-1990 (34 volumes -33,000 pages). • With funding support from National Endowments for the Humanities (NEH), UAL is working closely with ACKU in digitizing items mostly from the Jihad Period (1989-2006) housed at ACKU in KU (http://www.afghandata.org/). Already scanned and digitized 1,800 titles all accessible full-text worldwide. This collection is also linked from the Afghanistan Digital Libraries – (http://www.afghandata.org)

6. Goal and Outcomes of Digital Libraries • The goal is to develop the capacity of Afghan librarians (http://www.afghandigitallibraries.org/) to work with an open source digital libraries’ platform, to catalog library resources, and to provide open access to metadata, current content and educational materials that all Afghanistan universities will share and will have wider access. • The outcomes of our efforts are: 1) To build Afghanistan Digital Libraries with several components; and 2) To provide necessary trainings for library and IT staff

7. Why Digital Libraries? • Destruction of tangible valuable historical collections • Limited physical facilities • Lack of skilled and professional staff • Limited and outdated scholarly resources • Lack of funding and support

8. Afghanistan Digital Libraries (http://www.afghandigitalibraries.org)

14. ACKU Digitization- http://www.afghandata.org

19. System-wide Sustainability Issues/Challenges Academic public institutions in Afghanistan will not be able to sustain even their existing services and access to information without sufficient and permanent funding and endowment supports from both internal and external sources , short-term and long-term strategic plans , ongoing needs assessment, replacing current staff by hiring professional librarians and IT support staff in libraries, and creating a Library and Information Science curriculum and program in the country. Current Situation: Resources – • Books with Wings • Asia Foundation • Other private donors • Access to limited scholarly and specialized databases • Total lack of funding

20. Challenges/issues – cont. Staff – • Short-term trainings only for few provincial library staff • No long-term plans • Lack of professional staff IT Infrastructure – • Lack of IT professionals in libraries • Lack of needed hardware/software Preservation/Access – • Lack of preservation plans for physical and digital contents • Lack of funding • Lack of trained staff • Difficulty with internet access and connectivity Facilities – • Inadequate physical facilities • No suitable facilities to preserve materials

21. Next Steps • The UAL sub-contract funding with Afghan e-Quality Alliances ended in December of 2010. The Afghanistan Digital Libraries’ program is now in a cross-point. • In building the Afghanistan Digital Libraries, there have been many progress made over the years. On the other hand, there are major infrastructure–level critical issues such as human capacity that are not currently resolved for all of Afghanistan academic institutions. Until such program is fully implemented in Afghanistan, there is a strong need for collaboration in these areas. • In order to continue to build a fully functional library infrastructure and to provide library services in Afghanistan, these existing services should continue to be improved and to be supported for at least 2 more years: • Build human and infrastructure capacity and further onsite training in libraries in Afghanistan • All libraries should be fully utilizing all functions of the Integrated Library System (ILS) • Make use of available research and scholarly resources and introducing information literacy

22. Next Steps – Cont. • Address IT infrastructure needs and skills. • Emphasis should be on a long-term goal - establish a Library and Information Science certificate program to train future library and information science professionals to meet the needs of all types of libraries in the country. • Provide proficiency in English language and IT for Afghanistan academic libraries’ staff. • Create strategic goals for libraries • Assess provincial academic libraries • Secure permanent funding for library resources