Cost-Effectiveness of Solar-Powered LED Reading Lamps in Burkina Faso

A small-scale project to induce more reading among 5th and 6th graders in rural Burkina Faso by providing them with solar-powered LED lamps indeed increased reading for students in villages without preexisting libraries, but did not affect reading capabilities. The research aimed to establish the magnitude of effects after one year when 10-14 year-olds in rural African villages with small community libraries were given solar-powered lamps for night reading. The effects measured were reading habits (how much did students read?) and reading capabilities (how well could students read and comprehend what they read?). Once village effects were controlled, the lamps had statistically significant effects on reading habits for students in villages without preexisting libraries. The effect sizes were modest, ranging from .20 to .25. There were no effects on reading test scores. A cost-effectiveness metric to use for comparing with other studies of education interventions then is that expenditure of $1 per student on a solar-powered LED reading lamp distribution program generated about a 1% increase in reading, with no apparent effect on reading capabilities.

Impacts of Summer Reading Camp Programs in Community Libraries in Ghana

In August and September 2010, 200 Primary 5 students in northern Ghana attended 2-week summer reading camps hosted by 3 community libraries. The goal of the camps was to encourage reading among schoolchildren in a low-literacy environment. The camps appeared to be highly effective in improving reading abilities and habits. Reading scores on a written and oral test were considerably higher compared with a control group. Camps also had randomized programs and reading incentives, varying from day to day and camp to camp. This variation permitted analysis of student reading patterns when offered different reading contexts. Contrary to a commonly held belief, when students had available books by African authors and on Africa-related themes (compared with European/American books), they did not read more books. Intrinsic motivation treatments, where students were encouraged to engage in a variety of exercises (writing reviews for friends, reading with parents) produced small positive effects. A simple extrinsic motivational device of a “reading tree,” where students posted “leaves” with the book title and their name upon completion of a book, had no statistically discernible effect. The absence of large effects of reading camp program components suggests the need for further research.

Global Initiatives

This chapter presents an overview of nine organizations that strive to support the creation and support of rural libraries all over the world. These internationally based organizations typically work alongside local stakeholders to develop, build, and support these rural libraries. Some collect books, some help communities to build libraries and information centers on their own, some train community members to build these libraries, and others raise funds to support these efforts. Often times, these organizations do a little of all of the above. They are based in the United States, Europe, Asia, South America, and many other locations. There are some very well known international projects, but there are also smaller, lesser-known, highly effective organizations that have also made their mark.

Mounting a Quantitative or Qualitative Research Study of the Rural African Village Library

Mounting a research study in a rural sub-Saharan African village produces unique challenges not typically encountered in a cozy university laboratory. While the nature of all field research implies unpredictability and flexibility, rural village library researchers can avoid certain pitfalls that could sabotage their study. By disseminating the lessons the authors have learned, this chapter increases the likelihood that future researchers’ efforts at planning and executing their projects will bear fruit.

Beyond Reading

How might rural village libraries impact local economic development? This question has not been studied in depth, but there is some anecdotal evidence from some of the rural libraries presented in this book that access to these libraries may provide an indirect way for users to discover the link between access to information and improvement in their way of life. Sometimes, this improvement may manifest itself as an improvement in economic status, no matter how slight. Other times, access to the library might result in improved literacy skills that in the long run may allow users to engage in income-generating activities where reading or being able to write is necessary. The libraries themselves may also create local economic development programs that generate income that is then put back into the community and the library.

Books for African Readers

This chapter addresses the question of what materials would be useful and enjoyable for the new readers emerging from Africa’s recently expanded education systems. The Kitengesa Community Library in Uganda is described, and the library’s records of which books were borrowed over 2004-5 are analyzed. According to various criteria, the most popular books were storybooks, especially those based on traditional African stories. Books about various aspects of social development were less popular but were nonetheless borrowed and presumably read. The study has limitations, but it provides an indication of what kinds of material are appropriate for community libraries in rural Africa.

The Intergenerational Impact of a Rural Community Library on Young Children’s Learning Readiness in a Ugandan Village

Two cohorts of caregivers and preschool children residing in two rural Ugandan villages were recruited to identify the predictors of children’s learning readiness. Caregiver and child variables hypothetically associated with emergent literacy skills included caregiver’s medical health quality, caregiver depression, frequency of caregiver reading and storytelling to their children, and the child’s quality of attachment to the caregiver, which partially determines the attentional resources a child can commit to learning. The findings suggest that caregiver discomfort associated with poor medical health quality might allow caregivers to spend more time at home, where they can distract themselves with less physically demanding tasks such as reading and telling stories to their children. Their children’s more highly developed ability to inhibit their impulses might reflect their preoccupation with minimizing their caregivers’ discomfort. This ability might facilitate the development of emergent literacy skills in a culture that rewards paying strict attention to rote learning over creatively expressing oneself. If inhibitory control ideally prepares children for the hierarchical classroom environment that awaits them, it remains to be seen how children who participate in the STSA activity—which encourages self-expression through collectively acting out the children’s own stories—will perform in such a restrictive classroom setting.

Exploring Secondary School Student Factors and Academic Outcomes at the Kitengesa Community Library

This chapter provides an overview of research exploring the impact of the rural village library and other factors on secondary school students, a group of users that have been identified as a critical user group with a particular set of needs. Students in general are typically heavy users of these rural libraries, and use of the libraries by students take place within the context of complicated social, cultural, and environmental constructs, such as gender, socioeconomic status, reading habits, chronic poverty, and low literacy rates. These and other demographic factors are presented in chapter 1. Understanding the importance of these libraries to students is critical in light of the fact that schools in rural areas in Africa have little if any access to library or other reading materials and suffer from profound textbook shortages. Two groups of students—one with access to a rural village library and one without—served as the target population in a study of five factors related to students’ academic achievement (as measured by Overall Grade Average or OGA). The factors that were examined included library access, reading frequency, the presence of printed materials in the home, and the recreational reading of specific printed materials in the home. Taken together, the results provide some sense of the complexities involved in enhancing student outcomes in rural areas. The findings of this study may serve to highlight challenges associated with learning in rural environments as well as services that may help such as the rural village library.

Rural Library Services in African Countries

This chapter provides a very brief overview of the history, development, and characteristics of rural library services in several African countries from both a historical and modern-day perspective. Against the backdrop of public library development during colonialism, the chapter highlights the fact that libraries existed in Africa well before Colonial rule, but later library service development did not adequately meet the needs of the majority of the continent’s population. As a result, an alternative way of meeting the information needs of the people began to take shape. This chapter introduces the concept of and rationale for the development of the rural village or community library in Africa and details some particular instances of these establishments.

Cost-Effectiveness of a Summer Reading Program in Community Libraries in Burkina Faso

During the summer of 2008, all students in the 4th grade classroom (aged 11-13) in each primary school in five villages in southwestern Burkina Faso were randomly assigned and invited to participate in one of three different summer reading programs, including a summer reading camp. This chapter presents an assessment of how much different summer reading programs offered to students at CM1 level (4th grade) improved reading capabilities. Effects of the various summer reading programs were measured by pre- and post-intervention written and oral reading assessments conducted on the school premises. The scores on the tests for the students who participated in the summer camps were higher than those of the students in discussion groups and those who received free books. There is, however, evidence that the project implementers did not randomly assign all students to the programs as intended. Controlling for initial test scores, therefore, the reading camps generated about 8% increase in scores, or an improvement in test scores of .5 standard deviations.