Deborah Jacobs went from helping build Seattle’s state-of-the-art Central Library to visiting libraries overseas with no heat or running water and budgets as low as $30 a month.
In her first year on the job at the Gates Foundation, she has directed an expanding program called the Global Libraries Initiative, which aims to improve free access to computers and the Internet in public libraries.
Today she is presenting a $1 million prize to a foundation in Medellín, Colombia, for its innovative use of technology in libraries to promote community development.
After more than a decade as City Librarian in Seattle, Deborah Jacobs now manages the global libraries program at the Gates Foundation.
In her travels over the past year Jacobs said she has seen “absolute heroism and commitment to what libraries can do,” in places where “librarians are having to close the door to go across fields to their house to get warm water or go to the toilet or wash their hands.”
Source: Seattle Times
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 and is filed under Libraries and Librarianship.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.