World Librarians, a UMass Amherst student club advised by Professor Charlie Schweik (public policy and environmental conservation) and Theresa Dooley (UMass libraries), provided two Malawian high school students with information that led to their victory at the 2022 Malawi National Schools Science Fair held at Kamuzu Academy. The students, Gracia Yasin and Nthanda Katunga (pictured), were able to successfully design and build 12V batteries based upon instructions sourced from World Librarians using commonly-found recycled materials in the Malawian context.
As students at St. Michael’s Girls School in Malawi, Yasin and Katunga had access to a computer lab but not the Internet, making acquiring academic and technical information exceedingly difficult. However, the school’s physics teacher and World Librarians partner, Francis Kuyokwa, requested information and materials on how to make their recycled battery idea come to fruition.
Via WhatsApp, Francis describes what happened: “I sent requests [via WhatsApp] to the UMass World Librarians team asking them to share any resource concerning rechargeable batteries. The resources had to be those that are easy for senior secondary school students to understand. Fortunately, the UMass team provided an enormous amount of data in form of videos and PDFs to me over Google Drive which I could access via my smartphone. Gracia and Nthanda had to start reading immediately to fully master the precautions they had to take before handling any chemicals and materials. The main aim of their project was to produce a rechargeable battery that can easily be made and used at home.”
“We have received similar requests to this one regarding physics or science related topics, but we typically don’t see the direct impact or the results of the materials that we provide. However, this was one instance where we have been able to see how the resources we send impact the students and how this can significantly influence students' success, such as helping them win the National Science Fair,” says UMass Senior Mia Klotz, Request Manager of the World Librarians.
World Librarians is a socio-technical system that allows teachers and students in usually remote school settings with limited resources to access openly licensed educational materials by requesting specific information from the World Librarians team based at UMass Amherst. “Access to these resources expand the opportunities global learners have, and the open licensing allows for content to be adapted and localized,” says team co-director, Librarian Theresa Dooley. The program is able to provide these materials through several partnerships, with co-founding organization ShiftIT in Blantyre Malawi securing funding for and installing computer labs in Malawian schools, World Possible providing a device called a “RACHEL” (Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning), and a complex social courier system utilizing offline “dataposts” and WhatsApp to assist in communicating and disseminating materials between teachers and the World Librarians team. This team, which is made up entirely of UMass Amherst students, acts as the crucial “search” step in a process known as “request-search-transmit.”
“Key to World Librarians is to allow people in country to gain access to information they want rather than we in the Global North think they want,” says Professor Charlie Schweik, faculty adviser for the UMass World Librarians club. In order to access the information students want, requests go through a multi-layered search and quality control process that includes UMass students volunteering their time, the World Librarians request manager (Mia), and club co-advisor Librarian Dooley before being transmitted to the requester such as Francis. “It is a bit complicated, but this process has been operating for close to eight years and UMass students have serviced hundreds of information requests from a variety of Malawian schools we support” says Schweik.
After requesting materials, Yasin and Katunga, under the supervision of their teacher Kuyokwa, were able to successfully create a 12V battery using entirely recycled materials. Their project saw them win the Energy category at the 2022 Malawi National Schools Science Fair. The students have since gone on to attend a college in Malawi.
There is more to come for World Librarians. Future plans include setting up a searcher team in Malawi, flipping the search process to allow locally developed content sharing between in-network schools, expanding service to more schools, and finding grant funding to support all of this growth. Importantly, too, is continuing to grow the World Librarians team of UMass Amherst students. According to Schweik, “Our terrific UMass students in the World Librarians club1 quietly donate their time, weekly, to respond to requests like these. They recognize how lucky we are to have access to vast databases of information, while other locations do not. Our UMass students lead and drive the World Librarian program, to help kids on the other side of the planet follow their own passions and interests in learning.”
Learn more about World Librarians.
[1] This year’s club members are Mia Klotz, Varshini Arumugam, Samantha Bishop, Ashley Carter, Grace Ciocca, Nicholas Fox, Lia Martin, and Karin Suzuki. Some of Klotz’ time is graciously supported by the UMass Libraries’ Scholarly Communication department under the direction of co-adviser Theresa Dooley.