Scary Stacks

Printed materials have their own unique value. The library at the university is fairly scarce on virtually everything except East African History. Since my research paper is about healthcare, I have become familiar with the science collection. I consulted the card catalog, the kind with 3x5 cards, and was greeted by spiders. The next time I went to the library the power was back on so I consulted the computerized catalog. When my key word search yielded only five books, I tried multiple other word combinations. None of them turned up anything better. I decided to try and find the area that the few books I turned up might be. After combing row after row of dusty mis-shelved and unlabeled books, I gave up looking for anything specific. I found a section that looked promising. I skimmed the ten or twelve shelves reading titles and synopsis to find books that may be useful for my paper. I was excited to find an entire shelf of World Health Organization manuals on various subjects. When I looked at the copyright dates, 1986 – 1989, they were reshelved. The only other semi-recent publication was copies of the American Journal of Public Health from 2003.

Printed resources are necessary for learning in the Western education system. I think that I started write book reports in the third grade. Current teachers in Tanzania see little value in books. The mentality is that they made it through school without books, why are they necessary now.

My professors assign readings for books that are supposed to be in the library yet there is one copy that has been lifted by previous year’s students. There are four card catalog computers available for 15,000 students. It is common to spend more time looking for books than actually reading them. At this point I have yet to find any of the books that I need for any of my classes. The books I need are MIA. The few readings I have been able to get my hands on are from the professor’s personal collection and they have been photocopied.

Going home I have a new appreciation for the Mordvelt collection at PLU. I will complain less about the cost of books. Buying books means I don’t have to violate international copyright laws. Here students, when they find books, are expected to photo copy whole volumes of texts. It is hard on my conscience.

Students here are supposedly attending one of the best universities in East Africa and most of them can’t get their books for assigned readings. What is available in most cases in horribly out of date. For example, in my Sociology of Development class, all of the texts cited on the syllabus as references are from pre-1980. On the issue of development there are certainly more contemporary writings. Students and professors can’t get them here. They are either too expensive or just unavailable. Most of the departments have little to no budget for curriculum development and text purchases. More than one account has been given of professors that come to the US on the LCCT exchange and spend their money on books to bring back and not much else because there is such a lack of information.

This is challenging thought when this university is putting out professionals that aren’t even reading up-to-date journals.