Reaching for the Stacks – A Glimpse at Guatemala’s Library Culture

This is a special guest post from a volunteer with Librarians Without Borders.

Wilting from grappling with the new copyright management software package at the academic library where I work, I was delighted to be offered the opportunity to travel to Guatemala with Librarians Without Borders, a not-for-profit organisation which supports sustainable libraries in areas where information poverty is a significant impediment.  

 Scarred by conflict since the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th  century, Guatemala has only recently emerged from civil war and is in the process of re-negotiating its national identity.  Inspired by the gift of an exercise book in his youth, Jorge Chojolan founded the  Miguel Angel Asturias Academy in 1995, in Quetzaltenango (localy referred to as Xela, pronounced “shayla”),Guatemala‘s second largest city.  Asturias subscribes to the principles of Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed“, which foster critical thinking and the interrogation of divisive social norms.

 Poverty is a major obstacle to nurturing a culture of reading for pleasure in Guatemala.  Books in the home are a rarity. Asturias often struggles to service the educational needs of its students, given the limited library resources at hand. It also works to establish reading as recreation and to dispel a conception of the library as merely a homework space. The team of twelve from Librarians Without Borders contributed towards the deconstruction of this perception with a Library Day program catering to students from kindergarten to high school.  Younger children were treated to a puppet show adaptation of The Three Little Pigs which encoded a theme of knowledge as power, and books as the source of knowledge.  Older students played a True/False game, illustrated a comic jam and composed their own poems.  These activities were complemented by the physical layout of the library, which has structured and informal seating (no shoes permitted!) and book displays coinciding with the monthly social-awareness topics. These topics include human rights, discrimination, and ecology, for example.  Asturias has been promoting a respect for library books as a community resource over the last few years, and I felt proud to witness the first check-out as part of a pilot project to allow students to take books home with them.  

Chajul is in the Guatemalan Highlands and part of the indigenous Mayan Ixil (“eesheel”) community.  The women’s traditional woven clothing makes a dramatic tapestry of the steep streets, above which rear the hills from which guerrilla fighters instigated their campaigns over the course of the civil war, during which Chajul suffered severe casualties.  During the war, many parents kept their children at home and so schooling has been gaining currency again over the last two decades.

There is also an adult education program in Chajul, aiming to address the high levels of adult illiteracy (75% of the local population) and managed by volunteer students.  Limitless Horizons Ixil established a community library in Chajul in 2010, which serves 1500 members. Like Asturias, it offers an environment in which homework and study can be undertaken. Local homes are generally not conducive to study, as there is little personal space and incidence of domestic violence is comparatively high. Staff and supporters also wish to embed a culture of recreational reading in addition to advocating literacy as a means to empowerment.  As the staff librarians already offer a program of activities to incubate the desire to read, the children were very receptive to the story-time events planned and lead by the Librarians Without Borders team.  There were a number of knowledge transfer opportunities with the local and visiting librarian staff. Librarians Without Borders participants shared their collective experience with a view to helping the Chajul librarians make decisions about the opportunities and difficulties with which they are confronted.

A masterful ruse by the local team is to tell the children that there are hidden cameras concealed around the library premises to encourage the children to self-regulate their behaviour within the library.  My amusement was curtailed, however, by a chance comment by one of the local librarians in relation to theft: it occurs rarely and when it is detected, the librarians ask the child to explain why he or she stole from the library.  It is sobering to hear that the response is usually “Because I love this book and I have none at home”.  Working in an environment which is so information rich that it has to routinely destroy reading resources due to storage pressures, I am struck by the injustice of a child not having a single book of his or her own. This remains my most abiding memory of Guatemala, and rightly so.

Amsterdam Public Library main branch children’s section

The Amsterdam main branch is the largest public library in Europe, occupying a beautiful ten story building next to the central train station. Officially opened in July 2007, it offers several innovations, including a radio station and children’s section which uses a unique designed-by-kids classification system.

The children’s section is one story below the main entrance, but the ceiling is nearly three stories tall as it opens through the periodical section and the main floor. The open construction gives a feeling of space and makes it easy to find from the main entrance. What surprised me about this design is how little noise traveled up from the children’s section into the adult areas.

Classification

Overhead view of shelving in the children’s area

The open-concept layout showcases the unique design of the bookshelves. The shelves are all partial circles with the book spines facing inwards. While the shelves have the added benefit of creating an inviting, private reading area, this distinctive layout was chosen for more than the aesthetics; the semi-circles each represents a subject area in the the Library of 100 Talents classification system.

The system

The 100 Talents system, unique to the Netherlands, is based on the Reggio Emilia educational philosophy which views children as “beautiful, powerful, competent, creative, curious, and full of potential and ambitious desires.”¹ Drawing on this idea of the child as a rational and capable actor within the library setting, the Dutch library association invited children to help create a unique classification system and to design an ideal library. The resulting system is used to classify materials for young adults and for children aged 7 and above. The subject areas are broad, with abstract titles such as “Me in the World”, “Adventure”, “Going Outside” and “Dreams.” These large categories are then subdivided into smaller topics. For example, a subdivision of “Me in the World” is “Me and You,” which covers topics like religion, sociology, and the human body.

Shelf organization

In each sub-section the books are ordered in the same way: first the non-fiction by SISO (Dutch equivalent of DDC) number, followed by fiction in alphabetical order, and finally all other formats including audiobooks, DVDs, and magazines.
The proximity of fiction and non-fiction works is designed to encourage children to discover more about topics that interest them, without requiring them to search in the catalogue and to look in several different physical locations. According to a Youth Librarian working in the department, children are easily able to use the system while adults, more accustomed to separate fiction and non-fiction sections, do not pick it up as quickly.

It seems to me that the main strength of this system is that it groups all materials on the same topic together while still using traditional notation (DDC and authors last name) for shelf organization. This greatly reduces the need for updates, as only new DDC numbers need to be added to the schedules, rather than every individual item. In addition, using traditional notation should allow users to easily switch between the 100 Talents organization and the traditional organization in other libraries. I was unable to find any further English language information on this topic, but it would certainly be an interesting study to see how easily children accustomed to the 100 Talents organization are able to find materials in a traditional library.

Final thoughts

The centre bookshelf has a rooftop reading nook!

Overhead view of shelving in the children’s area

Clever shelf labels in the comic book section

“Me in the word” includes boks about sports, religion, sociology and the human body, among other topics. Vertical shelf labels are typical in Dutch public libraries.

The storytime area employs the same colour scheme as the rest of the library

As you might have noticed in the image gallery above, the colour scheme in the children’s section is quite adult when compared to the primary-colour inspired designs popular in North American children’s spaces. In fact, the colours in the children’s area (red and white with natural wood) are exactly the same as is used in the rest of the library, although some kid-centered decorative accents have been added.
Finally, I think it’s important to mention that the Amsterdam central branch is beautiful and massive library, covering 28,000 m². Within the library there is a theatre that seats 250, a radio station, conference rooms, exhibition space, a music department, study pods, and a truly excellent rooftop café which provides a sweeping view of the city. If you ever visit Amsterdam, it’s well worth a visit- and is easy to find since it is a ten story buildilng next to the central train station.

1. Hewett, V.M. (2001). Examining the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. Early Childhood Education Journal, 29(2), 95-100.

I would like to thank Ms. Skotarczak, Youth Librarian at the Amsterdam OBA, for her help in explaining the classification system.