Post 5: Further Collaboration

American Academic Libraries in Afghanistan and Qatar

In 2006, supported by USAID, the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) was established in Kabul.

In 2009 the library had five staff members – only one a professionally trained librarian. The library had implemented KOHA, an open source integrated library system on a server hosted by LibLime which made access to the OPAC, circulation, cataloguing and other modules possible.  Resources in the library consist of a mix of donated, downloaded and purchased books, serials and reports in print and electronic formats.     Much required original cataloguing and the main impediments were the lack of trained staff with no library training opportunities in Afghanistan. 

Collaboration between AUAF and the Texas A &M University at Qatar to train staff consisted initially of emails, conference calls and Skype.  When it became clear that hands on training was required and with little or no budget unique solutions were devised between the participating libraries and ‘Reach out to Asia’ to enable a training visit to Qatar.  Further ongoing collaboration continues and the heightened awareness of the achievements and benefits resulted in the administration agreeing to ultimately fund a full-time experienced systems/cataloguing librarian.          

ARoLP and the INLTC Law Library

The Afghanistan Rule of Law Project (ARoLP) is funded by USAID and aims to develop the justice sector, increase access to justice and public demand for rule of law.

ARoLP Library

In 2008 they opened a new law library at the Independent National Legal Training Center (INLTC).  For the first time this meant that Afghanistan’s legal community had access to a comprehensive collection of Afghan, foreign, and international laws.  Eventually, the library will house more than 5,000 legal volumes and will become Afghanistan’s first depository library where future laws and legal materials will be available and preserved in one place.  Ideally the web-based INTLC Law Librarycatalogue will be online to facilitate national inter-library loan.

Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AERU)

AERU in Kabul

Since 2002 AERU, an independent research organization has maintained a library of Afghanistan-specific materials to support its own research. In 2003 the Society of South Asian Studies, formerly the British Institute of Afghan Studies (BIAS), agreed to donate an estimated 3,000 library books and off-prints pertaining to Afghanistan and the region to the AREU Library. A condition of the donation was that the collection should remain in Afghanistan and be available for all researchers to use. The BIAS, established in Kabul in 1972, had undertaken a number of archaeological projects and supported British scholars conducting anthropological and ethnological fieldwork. In 1981 the Institute was closed down and the collection put into storage in the British Embassy. 

It was due to the efforts of several people including Carla Grissmann that this donation was made to the AERU.  The late Carla Grissmann was a central figure in the study and protection of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage and is also acknowledged on the ACKU’s website.

With financial support from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) AREU
has re-housed the collection, provided staff to catalogue it with funds to expand the holdings.

The growing collection now includes Afghan government publications from all periods as well as donor and NGO materials published about Afghanistan, relevant publications from UN agencies, periodicals, maps, CDs and DVDs.

AERU Library in Kabul

The AREU library’s main aim is not to compete with international collections, but rather to gather and preserve relevant materials available both within Afghanistan and abroad for use by national and international researchers.

AREU's library has over 13,000 titles, and is fully searchable online. 

At the beginning of my blog whilst searching google images I came across the photostream of stepnout.  This has provided me with many relevant photos and the names of both AROLP and AERU which I’ve now researched further both via the Swinburne catalogue and using metacrawler.com which I’ve found a more succinct tool than google when searching general terms. 

Using metacrawler I’ve also found a UNESCO report titled Library Development dated 1977 that is a detailed report of some 58 pages on the condition of libraries in Afghanistan at this time. 

I’ve also searched the references listed within the articles I’ve cited in previous posts and searched the AERU library catalogue to ensure that there was nothing relevant and available that I hadn’t yet discovered.  The AERU has links to online information two I wanted weren’t working.  I tried accessing the articles they had catalogued but the periodicals weren’t ones included in the Swinburne host databases.  The American University of Afghanistan website has been under maintenance and at present and I’ll continue trying to get onto that just to see what they have available.

What I did find is a website that seems to provide me much of the information I was looking for regarding the current state of libraries.  This will provide the subject matter for my next post.

References:

USAID/Afghanistan 2008, Afghanistan’s first full-service law library opened, USAID, viewed 16 September 2011, <http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/USAID/Article/386/Afghanistans_First_FullService_Law_Library_Opened>.

USAID/Afghanistan 2008, Independent National Legal Training Center law library membership surpasses 200 in first month, USAID, viewed 16 September 2011, <http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/USAID/Article/420/Independent_National_Legal_Training_Center_Law_Library_Membership_Surpasses_200_In_First_Month>.

Checchi and Company Consulting, Inc 2008, Sixteenth Quarter Performance Monitoring Report 2008, USAID, viewed 16 September 2011, <http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACM740.pdf.>.

Thompson, C , Frouzen, Z, Malone, J, Esfahani, B & Hanson, M 2010, ‘Assistance across Borders: American Academic Libraries in Afghanistan and Qatar’, Collaborative Librarianship 2010, vol. 2 no. 2, pp. 86-95, viewed 7 September 2011, <http://collaborativelibrarianship.org/index.php/jocl/article/view/74/52>.

Leslie, J 2011, Carla Grissman 1928-2011, ACKU, viewed 17 September 2011, <http://www.acku.edu.af/?p=News>.  

Eyre, J 1977, Republic of Afghanistan: library development (NATIS), report prepared for the Government of the Republic of Afghanistan by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), viewed16 October 2011, < http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0002/000243/024341eo.pdf>.

 2008, 'ARoLP Library' [image] in stepnout's photostream, Flickr, viewed 17 September 2011, <http://www.flickr.com/photos/stepnout/2987355140/in/photostream/>.
2008, 'AERU Library in Kabul' [image] in stepnout's photostream, Flickr, viewed 17 September 2011, <http://www.flickr.com/photos/stepnout/2981246365/in/photostream/>.
2008, 'AERU in Kabul' [image] in stepnout's photosteam, Flickr, viewed 17 September 2011, <http://www.flickr.com/photos/stepnout/2981246355/in/photostream/>.
BowersMediaGroup 2011, AUAF: Oasis in Kabul, 29 April, viewed 19 October 2011, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEUIe9fxhg&feature=related>.