Department of Social Science

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Libraries, literacy and poverty reduction: a key to African development
(2006) Mchombu, Kingo; Cadbury, Nicola
This paper examines the role of libraries as providing support in relation to two areas of knowledge, namely, literacy and survival information. Libraries play an important role in the acquisition, maintenance and development of literacy skills. They achieve this through offering access to reading materials that are relevant, stimulating, enjoyable or useful. Pleasure in reading, which in turn helps to foster a lifelong reading habit, is often experienced in the library in which readers gain their first opportunity to pick a book of their own choice. Libraries are also important for providing practical information that can be used to facilitate development, whether for seeking employment, understanding rights, learning a skill, checking a fact or developmental information, in health, agriculture, education and small businesses.