DIGITAL LIBRARY FOR DIGITAL DIVIDE AND ENVIRONMENT OF SCARCE ACCESS TO PRINTED MATERIALS: THE CASE OF UNIVERSITY JEAN PIAGET OF CAPE VERDE

With the failure of the traditional mechanisms of distributing bibliographic materials into developing countries, digital libraries show up as a strong alternative in accomplishing such job, despite the challenges of the digital divide. This paper discusses the challenges of building a digital library (DL) in a developing country. The case of Cape Verde as a digital divide country is analyzed, in terms of current digital library usage and its potentiality for fighting the difficulties in accessing bibliographic resources in the country. The paper also introduces an undergoing project of building a digital library at the University Jean Piaget of Cape Verde.

The current substantial disparity between industrialized and developing countries or even within the same country with regard to the access and usage of information and communication technology (ICT) is understood as “Digital Divide”. According to Karmakar & Isaías (2004), this expression refers to the “gap among countries with regard both to their opportunities to access ICTs in general and to their use of Web technology in particular”. With basic needs to satisfy, such as health, food drinking water etc, the developing countries do have, in some circumstances, to relegate the access and usage of ICT to a secondary place. The development of a digital library is usually an expensive process which increases the difficulties of developing countries in putting their scarce resources in such undertakings when they have basic needs to address. However, its usage in some circumstances can contribute substantially for the dissemination humanitarian information and disaster relief in scenarios of disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, etc. Therefore, it can be a priority for developing countries when it provides simple and reliable access to specific information to satisfy basic needs (Witten et all, 2001). In these circumstances, digital libraries give the ICT professionals a great opportunity in reversing the gap created by the ICT in these countries (Witten et all, 2001). On the other hand, digital libraries have particular relevance in developing countries, since here, the traditional publishing and distribution mechanisms have failed tragically (Witten, 2004). Many institutions and universities in developing countries experience great difficulties in accessing bibliographic resources. Digital libraries show up as an opportunity to resolve such problems, providing access to the most recent publications in a quick and reliable manner.