The Challenges Faced by African Libraries and Information Centres in Documenting and Preserving Indigenous Knowledge

Abstract

African libraries and information centres are faced with a plethora of challenges in the documentation and communication of indigenous knowledge. These include the lack of financial resources, human capacity, technology shortages and the lack of legal frameworks at national and international level to support the library efforts to document and communicate indigenous knowledge. The fast developing information and communication technologies continue to pose challenges on how best libraries can document and disseminate this oral and community based knowledge to a globally accepted knowledge base. The paper discusses these challenges, looking at some of the lessons learnt and the best practices that have emerged in dealing with them. © 2007, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.