| Although book donations began to find their
way into Eastern Europe prior to the revolutions
of 1989, particularly to the Visegrad countries,
the sundering of the Eastern bloc gave a strong
impetus for broader donation programs in the
region. Numerous donation projects, ranging from
a single box to several ship containers, have
been organized. However, during the period from
1989 to the present, both the volume of
deliveries and needs of the region have changed.
On the one hand, a certain amount of donor
fatigue, and in some cases donor-disillusionment,
has set in, limiting and posing threats to
programs, especially in the book donation field.
On the other hand, many organizations have
altered their activities out of recognition that
needs in many countries have fundamentally
changed, in part because of the success of past
donation projects.
The number of individuals and
organizations which have been involved in book
and journal donations to Eastern Europe over the
last several years is too great to count. Major
donation programs can be roughly divided into
four categories: Mass Regular, Mass
Irregular, Financial and Integrative.
Each of these broad categories can be sub-categorized
according to different modes of selection and
delivery.
Mass Regular donation
programs provide periodic shipments numbering in
the thousands of books to several countries in
the region. The leading organizations which
oversee such programs are the Sabre Foundation
and International Book Bank (IBB).
Both Sabre and IBB primarily
send new books which are donated from publishers'
stocks. Both organizations also send occasional
shipments of special collections, such as
libraries of retired or deceased academics, which
are normally sent as complete sets to one
institution.
Sabre and IBB distribute books
through in-region, not-for-profit partner
organizations. The partners distribute books to
libraries and other organizations according to a
system by which lists of donated books are
circulated to prospective recipients, who then
place requests for books. IBB provides partner
organizations with short descriptions of their
books as well as a classification system which,
among other things, indicates the subject, size
and format of books as well as intended audience.
Although this is unquestionably more helpful than
titles alone, several recipients indicate that
descriptions alone are not sufficient; they would
prefer to select their own books or, minimally,
to see the actual books prior to making
selections.
The partners then arbitrate
among competing requests. They are also
responsible for overseeing the books'
distribution, which, depending upon the country,
involves mailing donations or making arrangements
for recipients to retrieve the donated books.
Books which are under-subscribed by libraries are
normally distributed to individuals and
businesses.
According to information
provided by partner organizations in Hungary, the
Czech Republic and Poland, the normal
distribution of book shipments is as follows:
Donations to individuals are
likely to be significantly larger than the
information provided by partners would suggest.
If statistics were kept for end-recipients, the
figures would have to be altered, perhaps
significantly. As will be demonstrated below,
many of the donations initially sent to higher
educational libraries have been subsequently re-donated
to, or reacquired by, local libraries and
individual faculty members and students (see
section 3.2). Actual donations to individuals
are likely to be significantly higher at the
expense of higher educational and institute
libraries.
The overall volume of Sabre and
IBB's donations has remained relatively steady
over the last few years (see table one).
Both organizations, however, may be forced to cut
back operations in the region in the near future
because of decreases in USIA's Donated Book
Assistance Fund, which forms part of the SEED
grants to Eastern Europe. The awards, which were
cut from $150,000 in 1991-1992 and 1992-1993 to $120,000
in 1993-1994, are likely to be reduced further or
cut totally. In addition, Sabre and IBB both face
problems because of the growing financial
difficulties of their partner organizations,
which are the linchpins of their distribution
process.
IBB and other donors have also
indicated that they are experiencing growing
difficulties acquiring donations from publishers,
be it for cyclical economic reasons or because of
tighter controls on print runs.[2] Sabre has not
experienced the same difficulties, and has
managed recently to expand its base of donors by
placing increasing emphasis on previously
untapped university presses. Sabre's growing
emphasis on university presses has helped it to
increase the quality of its donations and allowed
it to provide some of the more advanced academic
books which many librarians and teachers are
requesting.
Table One:
Volume of Mass Regular Book Shipments: 1991-1994[3]
1991 1992 1993 1994*
SABRE IBB SABRE IBB SABRE IBB SABRE IBB
Czech. 25,000 54,000 19,000 21,000 21,000 39,000 34,000 40,000
Slovak 14,000 ** 44,000 ** 22,000 ** 32,000 25,000
Hungary 37,000 30,000 15,000 20,000 20,000 20,000 48,000 25,000
Poland 30,000 30,000 29,000 27,000 20,000 23,000 35,000 --
Albania -- -- 1,000 -- -- 40,000 -- 40,000
Bulgaria 29,000 29,000 34,000 41,000 39,000 61,000 29,000 20,000
Estonia -- -- 6,000 -- 9,000 -- 15,000 --
Latvia -- -- 11,000 -- 10,000 -- 10,000 --
Lithuania 26,000 -- 5,000 -- 14,000 -- 10,000 --
Romania 5,000 -- -- -- -- 20,000 -- --
Ukraine 100,000 -- 34,000 -- 55,000 -- 39,000 --
Figures have been rounded off to the nearest
thousand.
* Many figures from 1994 are estimates.
**The figures for the Slovak Republic are
combined with those of the Czech Republic for IBB's
deliveries from 1991-1993.
Mass Irregular donation programs
involve single or occasional shipments numbering
in the hundreds to thousands of publications.
Mass irregular shipments frequently entail the
donation of used books, although some
organizations are more exacting than others in
the donations which they will accept. The
donations are normally sent in bulk form and
recipients do not play a role in selecting books.
In some cases, however, partner organizations
play a role in selecting suitable recipients.
Irregular bulk shipments are promoted by
several organizations in the region. Brother's
Brother Foundation, which specializes in
donations of elementary and secondary school
books and medical books, donated a total of
approximately 150,000 books to Hungary and Poland
in 1991 and another 160,000 to the Slovak
Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1992. However, in
1993 it was only able to provide 29,000 books,
all to Poland. It will unlikely provide more in
1994.
Similarly, the American Czech-and-Slovak
Education Fund sent tens of thousands of used
books in a variety of fields to university
libraries in the Czech and Slovak republics in
the early 1990s, with donations from late 1991
through the end of 1993 totalling over 40,000
volumes. However, financial restraints are
limiting 1994 supplies and are likely to result
in dramatic decreases in the future. The
organization is hoping to change its profile from
an emphasis on bulk donations to the provision of
supplies to meet the more narrow needs of
scholars and specialty libraries, and broader
work in library development.
The American Library Association
organized donations of approximately 250,000
books and journals to Romania in 1991, but was
discouraged by difficulties of distributing the
books and by poor standards of librarianship, and
has thus ceased organizing major donation
projects to focus on training.
There are many other donors and suppliers of
mass irregular shipments throughout the region.
The different Soros Foundation offices in
the different countries of Eastern Europe have
organized donations of thousands of books. The
foundation in Albania alone organized shipments
of over 100,000 textbooks to universities and
libraries in recent years. WorldVision
donated thousands of medical and children's books,
journals and bibles to Romania from 1990 to 1993.
Subsequent supplies have diminished, although
some shipments were made in 1993 to Albania. Book
Aid International has sent a total of 30,000
books throughout Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union since 1990. The World Bank
Volunteer Corps has donated 20,000 books to
Romania and Albania in recent years. The Center
for Democracy donated 28 collections of 40
books and 2 collections of 150 books to libraries
in Bulgaria in 1991. An additional donation was
made to a library in Budapest, although donations
have since ceased.
Other such donors of books in the region
include the American Czechoslovak Society,
the American Latvian Association, the American-Hungarian
Educational Association, the International
Book Project, the Jan Hus Foundation, Michigan
Solidarnosc, the National Endowment for
Democracy, the Polish American Congress
Charitable Foundation and Spolichnost USA.
In addition, many government organizations
have organized donations. Embassies in the
different countries of Eastern Europe are
constant sources of donations. The United
States Army has donated the materials from
several of its libraries to school and public
libraries in the region. Such donations increased
with the closing of several military bases in the
region, but have since levelled off. The United
States Information Agency, through its
representatives in each country, also provides
funding for the purchase of book collections,
although funding is now threatened.
The overall volume of mass irregular donations
has unquestionably declined in recent years. Many
organizations have decreased or totally ceased
their involvement in the donation process in the
last two years. The elimination of such shipments
will, in some cases, be a significant loss.
Brother's Brother received strong praise for its
donation of medical books (although there was
some criticism in other subject areas) and the
Center for Democracy's 'Library of Democracy' is
clearly of high quality. In general, however, the
elimination of mass irregular shipments is less
harmful than the elimination of other forms of
donations. Donors frequently were insufficiently
selective, offering useless books of little value.
Though mass irregular donations have the
potential to bring many useful books to the
region, their effectiveness would seem to require
greater vigilance on the part of distributors.
Financial grants are monetary grants
made to libraries which can select their own
purchases, although sometimes from a limited
number of publishers. The Volkswagen
Foundation in Germany has been the leader in
the provision of financial grants to libraries in
the region. Grants approved in 1990 and 1991,
which were disbursed through 1993, provided 95
libraries in the Czech Republic, the Slovak
Republic, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania
with a total of 6.6 million DM of support. The
program permitted libraries to purchase books and
journals, primarily with a focus on the natural
and engineering sciences and medicine. The
selection of publications was made by the
librarians themselves from the catalogs of a
limited number of German publishers. In addition,
libraries were allowed to purchase materials to
promote the distribution of texts, including
photocopy machines and photographic facilities
for microfiche. The program was frequently cited
as the most popular in the region. However, at
present, the Volkswagen Foundation has no plans
to offer further support for book and journal
donation projects.
Many of the local Soros Foundations, in
addition to supporting bulk shipments, have made
financial grants to libraries for the purchase of
books as well as journals. Some also serve as
partner organizations, assisting with the
identification of recipients and the distribution
of donations. In addition, they work closely with
the Soros funded Open Society Institute in
Budapest, which has recently undertaken a variety
of programs related to library development. The
activity of the Soros network in the book
donation field should continue and will likely
grow in the near future.
Integrative donations are those which
are formally linked to broader assistance
projects. Such donations are most prominent in
the context of Western-sponsored teaching
programs. Organizations which specialize in
teaching in Eastern Europe, including the Civic
Education Project, the Peace Corps, Fulbright
and the British Council, all provide their
lecturers with books or financing for the
purchase of books and other teaching materials.
In many instances, lecturers also attract
financing for the acquisition of further
donations. Although the exact policies vary from
organization to organization, most materials
provided by the organizations are donated or
loaned to libraries at the host institutions.
Other integrative book donations form parts of
broader grants for the support of information,
research and study centers, and special libraries
connected to them. Sponsors of such donations
include the World Bank[4], the European
Community's Tempus program, the Open
Society Institute's Higher Education Support
Program, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,
the Ford Foundation, the Krieble
Foundation and ISAR (which specialises
in environmental issues) to name a few. Grants
for purchases of books and journals generally
form a small part of such donations, and are
relatively rare.
Integrative donations are, however, extremely
important, because they place donated materials
in environments in which they are likely to be
used. Materials donated to institutions with
lecturers who teach in English, be it literature
or the social sciences, are more likely to be
integrated into courses and find audiences who
are capable of reading advanced texts in English.
Donations which help to create or promote
research and study centers have a greater chance
of finding researchers who will actually use them.
This is especially the case for institutions such
as American and British studies centers, where
the reading audience is likely to possess the
language skills necessary to use the donations
effectively.
It is difficult to assess the
efficacy of book donation projects in the region
in part because donors, suppliers, partner
organizations and recipients have failed to
create mechanisms through which to measure their
impact. Measurements of the volume of books sent
to the region, which are often cited by donors,
suppliers and distributors as proof of success,
are inadequate. They fail to address three key
issues: the quality of donations, the degree to
which they are accessible to the reading public
and the frequency with which they are actually
used, issues which must be addressed if one is to
gain an accurate view of the efficacy of donation
programs.
The quality of book and journal
donations is more important than the sheer volume.
The donation of a few good books is less
expensive and can have a greater impact than the
provision of numerous books which will never be
read. Book and journal quality is of paramount
concern for recipients, who continually cite
quality as their greatest problem in the sphere
of book donations.
Recipients have generally been
forced to become more selective in the books and
journals which they accept. What might have been
tolerated six or four years ago, in the desperate
early stages of the region's opening, is
perceived as unacceptable today. Surveys of
libraries in the ten countries of the study
indicate that over 75 percent of recipients have
become more selective in their willingness to
accept donations. Information provided by partner
organizations points to instances where
institutions have decreased their orders of books
substantially, which the recipients themselves
indicate is due to growing concerns over quality,
coupled with real space pressures in the aging
buildings which house many libraries.
Many donors and suppliers,
particularly of bulk donations that do not permit
selection, have sent books which would not do
justice to any library. Many organizations, large
and small, retain the naive belief that
absolutely anything would benefit people in
Eastern Europe. Many libraries cited horror
stories of donations which ranged from The
Airline Stewardess to Be a Good Housewife.
Collections of 'throw-away' books usually have
little impact, cost a significant amount of money,
time and effort and are insulting to recipients.
Sponsors of such programs, although often well
meaning, would be better off expending their
resources elsewhere, or working directly with the
recipients or distributors to identify needs more
closely.
Although problems with book
quality are most often associated with bulk
programs, programs which work on the list system
are not immune from quality control difficulties.
Partner organizations normally estimate that
between 5 percent and 10 percent of the books
which they receive are of little value, with
estimates ranging as high as 20 percent. Moreover,
the figures are low, because they do not take
into account the frequent dissatisfaction of
recipients when they receive their donations. For
example, one library in Lithuania sent in a list
of over 30 books which it considers to be useless;
this occurred in spite of the fact that the
library was able to make its selections from
lists of titles. It should still be kept in mind,
however, that even with a relatively high rate of
useless books, the mass regular programs bring
many useful books into the region. The
difficulties do suggest, however, the need for
greater vigilance on the part of distributors.
The most common complaints
about quality focus on the age of the relevant
donations, particularly, although not exclusively,
those concerned with modern technologies. Old
computer books in particular were cited as a
common donation which is of little use; most of
the individuals and institutions with access to
technology in the region use up-to-date equipment
and computer programs.
A second common complaint
centers on the provision of incomplete sets of
collections of books and especially journals. For
example, a donation of volumes three and five of
an eight volume collection on Roman history are
of limited utility.
Another area of difficulty
relates to donations of non-foreign language
instruction books to primary and secondary
schools. Foreign language books dealing with
basic subjects, like algebra, are of little
utility in the region, where the teaching of the
subjects is adequate, if not superior to the West,
and where the relative language ability of the
target audience is inadequate.
A final area of common
criticism concerns the academic level of the
donated books. On the one hand, many partner
organizations indicate that they believe that
many of the books which they receive are too
specific for their recipients. A book on the rice
economy in China was cited by one as an example
of such a book. On the other hand, faculty
members complain that donated books are overly
general for research, but donated in insufficient
numbers to serve as textbooks. For example, one
lecturer in the Czech Republic pointed out that
there are too many donations of introductory
level books concerning subjects like American
history and macro-economics, and not enough
focusing on advanced questions in the same fields.
Another, in Poland, asserted that his library
contains several different titles offering an
introduction to American history, but that there
are not a sufficient number of any one to allow
it to serve as a text for a course.
While these criticisms might
appear contradictory, they point to the need to
clarify goals and to adjust the selection and
distribution processes accordingly. While the
goal of promoting research is legitimate, many
advanced books which promote this goal are
unlikely to find interested parties while faculty
members remain outside of the selection process.
More than 50 percent of the faculty respondents
to the survey had never been consulted about the
selection of any donated book or journal. The
result held true across the geographic spectrum
of the survey.
Similarly, donated books could
promote learning more effectively if they were
incorporated into courses. The distribution
process, however, tends to diffuse many of the
same type of books among several institutions.
One institution, for example, might have two
copies of ten different titles, all of which
cover introductory material on economics, rather
than twenty copies of the same textbook, which
could be integrated into a course. Surveys of
students indicate that there is a small, but
significant number of lecturers, Western and 'local',
who regularly assign readings from Western books
and journals. The overall impact of donations
would grow substantially if these lecturers were
consulted and, indeed, provided with texts which
could be integrated into their courses.
Measurements of access address
the fundamental issue of whether donated books
can actually be read by the reading public.
Unfortunately, in many cases the books are not
accessible.
Where information on donations
was provided, usually by partner organizations,
searches were conducted of recipient libraries
for ten books selected at random. The searches
revealed disappointing results. Most recipient
libraries fell into four categories: those where
nearly all of the donated books were found;
libraries where around one-third were found,
libraries where none were found and libraries
which were inaccessible to students, and, in some
cases, faculty members.
Table Two:
Accessibility of Donated
Books[5]
Books Located Libraries
71-100% 25%
31-70% 20%
1-30% 25%
0% 20%
Inaccessible* 10%
* Defined as inaccessible to students and/or
faculty members.
As table two shows, nearly all of the donated
materials (defined as more than 70 percent) were
located at only 25% of the libraries consulted.
At a full 30 percent of libraries, no donated
books were found, or all of the donated books
were found to be inaccessible. At another 25
percent of libraries, 30 percent or less of the
donated books were located.
Although in a few instances there might be
reasonable explanations for the absence of the
books, such as secondary donations to faculty or
public libraries, or poor cataloguing, such
explanations were taken into consideration and
cannot justify the scope of missing donations.
This leaves the basic question: where are the
books? In one instance, books donated long before
were sitting in another room, still in boxes.
During another survey, a recipient librarian
indicated that books were given to students,
although discussions with numerous students
suggests that this is an exceedingly rare
practice. Judging from anecdotal evidence, it
would appear that most books can be found in the
possession of lecturers or university
administrators (thus the tendency for fewer books
to go missing from state libraries). As one
visiting Western lecturer in Romania commented,
"Deans, department heads and professors seem
to always have some brand new donated books
proudly displayed in their homes, even if their
knowledge is limited."
The inability of some end-recipients even to
read the donated materials underscores the
importance of placing books in libraries. All too
often, books become trophies rather than sources
of learning.
Placing books in faculty libraries might
guarantee faculty members greater access to
donations. However, faculty libraries have
significant drawbacks, the most important being
their restricted access to student users. A
faculty library in the Slovak Republic, for
example, contained seven copies of an
introductory economics textbook (which from
appearances were hardly ever used). Certainly,
the institution as a whole could have benefitted
if most of the copies were in the student reading
room down the hall where no copies were located.
Donated books promote education in the region
most effectively when they are accessible to
students, particularly if they are textbooks.
Suppliers and partner organizations have
failed to conduct systematic checks of
institutions to insure that donations are used as
intended. One partner organization asserted that
librarians would be insulted if it checked up on
them, and other partner organizations indicated
that voluntary efforts to identify usage met with
little compliance from recipients. Some suppliers,
including the Sabre Foundation, have taken the
responsibility upon themselves, though checks by
suppliers, because of their distance from the
region, tend to be haphazard at best. Only when
egregious malfeasance is reported to partners is
any action taken to suspend donations to
institutions whose actions contravened the spirit
in which the donations were made. The absence of
institutional mechanisms for checking donations
means that, for the most part, institutions which
are misusing donations are continuing to receive
them.
The lack of oversight of recipients points to
broader problems in the use of resources by
suppliers and partner organizations, particularly
in their use of databases. In many cases,
databases are incomplete. Moreover, no effort is
made to track donations once they are given to
recipients, so that if there are secondary
donations to public libraries or departmental
libraries, or to students, partners have no
institutionalized means of knowing. There is no
indication that databases, even in so far as they
are accurate, are used effectively. A database is
important as a means to an end, not as an end in
itself. If the material gathered in the database
is not used to any particular end, then there is
no need to create the database. As we will
discuss in greater detail below, the successful
use of databases could significantly increase the
overall efficacy of donation projects.
The broader question of whether
accessible donations are used is more difficult
to assess, because most institutions do not keep
such records. The results of surveys of
institutions which did keep records were mixed
results; some donated books were used tens of
times and others not at all. Impressionistic
evidence derived from observations of libraries
and interviews with students and faculty members
suggests that books are most likely to be used
when:
One key problem is that
students, and in some cases faculty members, are
not aware of the scope of donated books. Not all
institutions advertise their new acquisitions
with displays and announcements, and even when
such steps are taken, their long-term impact can
still be limited, especially if the acquisitions
are stored on closed stacks. For example, one set
of political science books donated to a Ukrainian
institution, where most of the students speak
English, remained unused a year after the
donations arrived. Most students seemed unaware
of their presence and a quick survey of the books
revealed that almost none had been read.
Many of the donated books,
although useful, are not mainstream in the sense
that one might not look for them in standard
author/title cataloguing. There are numerous
useful books in the field of political science
and economics, for example, which Western
specialists, and more importantly East European
students and faculty members, might not
necessarily look for in a card catalogue or
computer.
One means of improving
awareness of donated books would be to require
recipient libraries to make lists of donations
easily accessible to users. Accurate databases
would allow partner organizations to provide such
lists and update them with each additional
donation. Ideally, the databases could be broken
down by author and subject area. Such a step
would allow those interested in foreign language
publications and capable of reading them to
locate needed books more easily. It would also
place pressure on recipient libraries to keep
books accessible, because they would be forced to
acknowledge the receipt of donations. Accurate
and accessible databases would make oversight of
recipients far easier, because information about
donated books would be more readily available to
interested parties.
Interviews and surveys with
librarians, faculty members and students have
demonstrated that in spite of assistance provided
by book donation programs, there is still great
demand in the region for Western assistance,
particularly in the former Soviet Union.
Changes in the economies in the
region and relative levels of state support have
had important implications concerning the ability
of libraries to acquire Western books.
For the Visegrad countries,
libraries in the Czech Republic, the Slovak
Republic and Hungary have clearly benefitted from
economic changes in the region and have been able,
in many cases, to increase purchases of Western
books. Polish libraries, on the other hand, have
witnessed substantial declines in book purchasing
power, due in large part to state budgeting
priorities.
Outside of the Visegrad
countries, two trends become clear. First,
libraries in the former Soviet Union,
particularly in Ukraine, Latvia and Lithuania,
report substantial decreases in book purchases
over the last three years. The libraries in these
countries which suffered most were state
libraries, particularly those specializing in the
natural and engineering sciences.
Second, libraries in the region
still rely heavily on donations to acquire
Western books. The extent of reliance on
donations varies greatly, but for libraries in
the region as a whole, a full 30% of respondents
indicate that 75 percent or more of the Western
books which they have acquired in the last two
years were donated. Even in the Visegrad region,
18 percent of libraries report a similar
acquisition pattern, while nearly 40 percent
indicate that at least 50 percent of their
Western book acquisitions over the same period
have been donated (see appendix one).
This survey data supports the
conviction expressed by many librarians that
Western donations are still of great importance
to the region and that libraries depend upon
donors for acquisitions of Western books. A
librarian of a major Polish university library,
which has received considerable support for
automation, explained that while library
automation is important, the library needs books
as well.
The most common requests are for
general reference books, particularly
dictionaries and encyclopedias. Of the latter,
there are requests in numerous fields ranging
from philosophy to art history. Such donations
would be helpful, because they serve both the
student and the researcher. Similarly, there are
requests for greater access to anthologies of
literature and a variety of subjects within the
humanities, because they could compactly provide
a wide range of information and access to primary
sources which are much in demand in the region.
Other demands fit in closely
with the profile of individual recipients and the
goals outlined above. Institutions specialising
in language instruction, or which serve the
general public, tend to express the desire for
more ESL materials and English language books,
such as novels.[6]
Professionals request books providing practical
knowledge, particularly in the medical field, but
also in areas of politics, environmental
protection and business.
Those in higher education frequently cite the
need for greater quantities of textbooks.
Partners are placed in a difficult situation,
because they are often forced to decide between
providing one or two books of the same title to
several institutions or, for example, 20 of the
same title to one institution. The former choice
is more common. That is unfortunate because, as
was discussed above, donations which can be
integrated into an academic course offered year
after year would have a much greater impact than
single copies of books dispersed among different
libraries.
The use of books for instruction also concerns
foreign lecturers teaching in the region, many of
whom are sponsored by Western organizations
including the Civic Education Project, Fulbright,
the Peace Corps and the British Council.[7] Particularly the
former three, who teach non-ESL academic courses,
have indicated that their courses could benefit
greatly from advanced materials other than the
basic texts which all of the organizations
provide. Donations of additional materials to
schools and universities hosting foreign teachers
would have a significant impact, because those
teachers work with large numbers of students who
possess language skills to read foreign language
texts and because they can integrate advanced
texts into a broad teaching format.
There are several other areas where recipients
indicate that their needs are not being met:
recent computer books; advanced and specialized
books, particularly in economics; and books on
Eastern Europe. Those who have taught in the
region can testify to the relatively weak and
distorted knowledge which students in the region
have of their own and their neighbours' history
and contemporary political situation. Although
the Sabre Foundation has supplied some such books,
as well as some books in Ukrainian and Russian,
the need for them remains significant.
A large number of books have
been donated to libraries in Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet Union since the revolutions of
1989. However, volume should not be equated with
efficacy. The quality of donations, particularly
of bulk donations, is often incommensurate with
the quantity; donated books are frequently
unsuitable for any library and are rarely
appropriate for higher-level academic courses and
research needs. Distribution systems, even when
operated through local partner organizations, are
not designed to maximize the effective use of
resources; donations should be integrated into
academic courses and into centers of quality
research where researchers have the capacity to
use them. Finally, the failure of donor
organizations and partners to verify that book
donations are accessible to the reading public
has resulted in numerous donations failing to
reach those for whom they are intended.
If the goals of donor
organizations and their financial supporters are
to promote learning in higher education and the
advancement of academic research, then the above
problems suggest that donation projects must be
changed. Even the mass book donation projects,
like those sponsored by the Sabre Foundation and
IBB, which bring many useful books into the
region at a relatively low cost, must make
significant changes if they are to warrant
continued support; the volume of books sent is
not as impressive when other factors are taken
into consideration, such as the number of useless
and inaccessible books, and the large volume of
donated books which are not even intended for
university or national libraries.
Donation programs would promote
education and research in the region more
effectively if the following practices were
adopted:
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