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Democratizing Information Around the Globe
At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a handful of students have been acting as librarians for students and educators across the world, answering requests for information ranging from cake recipes to instructions on how to build a wheelchair. This work is the goal of the World Librarians Project, which aims to bridge the global digital divide in access to the internet. Commonwealth Honors College students have dedicated their creative energy, Honors Theses projects, and postgraduate time to seeing this endeavor succeed.
Nearly six years ago, Charlie Schweik, a professor of environmental conservation and public policy, began envisioning the World Librarians Project after he was introduced to the broadcast data company, Outernet. The company used satellites to transmit data to small portable receivers around the world. This gave Schweik the idea to use this technology to make online information globally accessible, an idea that became the World Librarians project. He created this project with UMass Amherst students; UMass librarian, Jeremy Smith; and Carl Meyer, cofounder of ShiftIT, an educational organization based in Malawi.
In World Librarians, students and educators in Malawi send requests for information through Twitter to the @WL_UMass account, and UMass students upload that information to Google Drive. UMass students then verify the information is published under a Creative Commons license, and upload it to Kolibri Studio, where the requester of the information can receive and download the content. The idea, according to Schweik, is to move away from a “Western” control on information and make information more globally accessible. The project is now expanding to Kenya with the nonprofit Net Bila Net, and has been featured recently in podcasts for BBC and Small and Gutsy.
“There’s basically no difference from a UMass student going into the UMass library and asking a librarian a question,” Schweik said. “We’re just providing the service because we have access to the internet, and they don’t.”
The project found a base in Schweik’s Honors 391AH Topics course, “Workshop in the Study of Commons-based Peer Production,” where he gave students in the class the option to join him in his work. The course examines Creative Commons and resources not blocked by copyright. When asked about the role students play in World Librarians, Schweik emphasized their significant impact and said many of them continued working for him well beyond the class.
The Students
Anthropology major Micky Cox ’21 is one such student. He joined the project through Schweik’s class in 2018 and has been working there as a search manager ever since: sorting tweets and delegating search requests to other team members.
“It's really rewarding to hear from the schools and see that our resources helped, or hear someone say, ‘we built something off of a video or PDF you sent us,’” Cox said.
Cox said that he ultimately wants to go to law school, and that he sees this project as connected to his overall focus of increasing accessibility to services for the general public.
“When Charlie introduced the idea to me, I was hooked because part of the reason I want to go to law school is to be able to help people and make things more accessible for everyone. I think education is a good place to start with that,” Cox said.
Kate Marchetti, a senior majoring in operations and information management, also started working for World Librarians through Schweik’s Honors course. She had heard of the project through friends in the Honors College and started working on a video explaining the project as part of a fundraising campaign. Afterwards, she continued working on the project as a searcher.
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“I just loved the whole concept of World Librarians, I feel like it has such a strong sense of purpose,” she said. “It’s eye-opening to learn about this digital divide and create a bridge to fix that divide. That’s what World Librarians is all about.”
Marchetti's current role with the project involves working on fundraising to expand the project to a school in Nairobi, Kenya. One of the challenges students are working on solving is ensuring the teachers receiving information do not have to use their own money for data to download the materials. To help solve that problem, Marchetti is utilizing UMass's MinuteFund as an ongoing fundraiser.
The Alumni
Computer science alumnus Scott McCullough ’19 also worked on this project and made it a focus of his Honors Thesis, where he discovered a micropayment app that allows World Librarians to pay teachers directly for data. He started with the project in Schweik’s Honors course and continues to work with World Librarians despite graduating from UMass.
“I want to be able to give back and contribute to more common good, I really do want to do more social, more public sector social-based work,” McCullough said. “I am still exploring different avenues to do that, and that’s the driving force of why I want to continue to contribute to World Librarians.”
In his junior year, McCullough presented his work on the project at a the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) conference, “Mobile Learning Week 2018: Skills for a Connected World,” in Paris. He said he envisions a future where this project is not unique, but part of a more widespread daily operation.
“I see a future where anyone who has a question can get good information that really satisfies their question. At the end of the day, it’s really about education, and giving everyone that wants it the means to think about whatever concept they want to," he said.
As an alum, McCullough is an advisor, addressing logistical or managerial concerns so that current undergraduate students can focus on the day-to-day tasks and operation.
Danielle Bermingham ’20 also chose to focus on World Librarians for her Honors Thesis and continues with the project after her graduation. Her thesis portfolio was titled “Three Ways Toward Moving the World Librarian Program Forward: (1) Expanding Searcher Capabilities; (2) Crowdfunding; and (3) Tracking Digital Postage.” She described it as a manual for future UMass students to follow.
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As a biology major, Bermingham's interest in the project was primarily global accessibility to health care information, and she has received requests for information about COVID-19.
“It gave me a new perspective, going into the medical field, of things that aren’t open source and should be,” she said. “I want to move forward with people who publish medical journals, making sure people who publish reports [make it] open access so people from other countries can read up on it.”
“I could see something like the World Librarians very easily being a thing at most college institutions,” Cox added. “It’s not super hard, it’s not super expensive, it’s just about taking the time to foster relationships with other places. The whole purpose of this model and the way that we’re doing it is we want it to be readily accessible to people who need it. So, the nature of it is meant to be shared.”
This story originally appeared on the UMass Amherst Commonwealth Honors College website.