A New Owner’s Guide to Beagles. NOT

Part of the vision for UCBC is that students and faculty will be leaders in their fields. They will engage in deep research and imagine and promote new solutions to age-old challenges. They will participate with colleagues across the continent and the globe. They will be 21^st Century learners and educators.

There are some gaps we need to fill in order to get there, though.

To begin with, most of our students lack basic knowledge and skills to use a library’s resources, including searching, evaluating, and choosing resources (print and digital). Many faculty lack the knowledge and skills also. The reason? The prevailing system of education in Congo is one based on transmission of information from teacher to student via lecture. Libraries are either non-existent or boxes of cast-off books from well-meaning westerners.

Second, will need to develop our library. Admittedly, the UCBC library is in better shape than many of its peers. We have a designated room where there are books, computers, shelves, and desks. We have two staff designated to serve as librarians, eager to learn and become professional librarians. They need that training.

Calling all Congolese beagle-owners

We have books, maybe 1000-1500. The majority are remnants of garage sales. There are probably as many Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele novels as there are books algebra, Congolese history, and sociology texts. A New Owner's Guide to Beagles, Chicken Soup for the Busy Mother, and the Boxcar Children might as well be written in Sanskrit, for all they have to offer our students and faculty. There are books from well-intentioned teachers and academics who have cleared out their own libraries, and some kind donations from a couple of colleges and churches. Thanks to the efforts of some international staff and visitors who want to help build up the library, we also have a handful of new and appropriate titles, including French and English dictionaries!

Our staff record and organize books according to general themes, but the library lacks a cataloguing system.

Then there is the challenge of access to digital resources. Current internet speed is limited—less than 1/20^th the speed of the connection speed in the average US household. For students and faculty who rely on one of UCBC’s computers, the window of opportunity to get online is limited to 8:30am-noon and 1:00-4:30, Monday-Friday.

But rather than worry about what we don’t have, we look at what we do have.

First we have students and faculty with a desire to learn and an eagerness to fully engage in the world of academic and intellectual pursuit. One of our library staff, anticipating the arrival of Joost Hartog, an ICT and computer skills instructor, approached me to set up his schedule for the week. He wanted to be sure to block out time to work with Joost and take advantage of his presence. “I want to be a professional. I want to learn how to help our students research and use the computer.”

Lwanzo unpacking new donations

Second, we have designated space for our library. From the beginning, the UCBC leadership committed to developing a library for the university. It was Dr. Kasali, Rector of UCBC, who corrected the Minister of Education about the role of libraries in education. When David went to register UCBC in Kinshasa, the Minister said,  “To have a good university you need land, buildings, students, and teachers.” David responded, “You also need a good library.”

Third, we have new friends and resources who advise us. Engineering Ministries International East Africa (eMi) has is developing a plan for our power needs. The plan will facilitate wise decision-making as to construction and how to build out our power systems in an organized, financially-responsible manner.  We have new friends in the Netherlands who are helping us connect to resources for skill-building for faculty, staff, and students (computer skills, ICT, information literacy, and librarianship training). Chief among them are friends from the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Henk van Dam and African Jumanne, and Helen Boelens of the European Network for School Librariesand Information Literacy (ENSIL).

Some of our better titles

Fourth, we have a couple of grant proposals, including one recently submitted to the Zimmer Family Foundation, entitled “EQUIP Project: Creating a Quality University Library for Université Chrétienne Bilingue du Congo (UCBC).” Thanks go to Cullen Rodgers-Gates, Director of US Operations of CI, and Howard Brown, member of the Board of US Operations of CI. A major part of the grant is training for library staff and UCBC faculty in information literacy and ICT skills, so they can then teach their students by integrating this instruction into their curriculum. The grant also provides for librarianship training for our library staff, and improving the library’s resources (e.g., new books appropriate to a university library. Thanks to Henk and Helen for their assistance in writing the proposal. 

Our vision that UCBC students and faculty be fully engaged as 21^st Century learners and scholars may be bold. But we are on our way!