Public Libraries Development Reconsidered |
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| Authors: | Elizabeth N Bouri |
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| Institution: | Research Associate, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, U.S.A. |
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| Abstract: | AbstractThis paper advances a new interpretation of the development and current decline of public libraries in Egypt based on the study of international influences which helped to shape national discourses about development and provided the context for policy making and resource allocation in Egypt. After 1945 UNESCO encouraged fundamental education and the development of public libraries as operational tools of "education for development". Public libraries witnessed remarkable growth, but then, in the late 1960s, the dominant international discourse about development shifted under the influence of dependency theory to emphasize the need for developing countries to develop from within. Information for development became a self-evident requirement, but the new priority displaced public libraries in favor of specialized information systems for decision-makers. Traditionally, public library decline is attributed to local factors and issues of scarcity. In the case of Egypt, however, factors of scarcity are better interpreted as symptoms than as underlying causes of decline. This paper maintains that the current state of decline of public libraries in Egypt is primarily a consequence of public policy choices precipitated by a shift in international as well as national development priorities, not of factors inherent in the country’s political, social and cultural fabric. |
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