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Uganda
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Directory Information
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There are more than 50 ethnic groups in Uganda, speaking distinct dialects or languages. The indigenous languages have been allowed to sink into oblivion, both by the British and by successive Ugandan governments. There are not enough reading materials in indigenous languages, and the number of indigenous people who have mastered Swahili, English, or French has remained small. At the same time, library materials favored foreign languages and cultures. Between 60 and 80 percent of adult and potential readers cannot comprehend foreign language library materials in Uganda. Library service for all remains an illusory goal until either sufficient indigenous reading materials are produced or a greater proportion of Ugandans master foreign languages, unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Uganda's library services thus differ from those in developed countries but are comparable with those in many developing countries in Africa. First, there is no national library as such. Some of the conventional functions of a national library are performed by the large academic or special libraries. Second, most library services are funded by the central government, and few libraries have developed as a result of local initiative. This fact partly explains the marked concentration of large libraries in the capital city of Kampala and other towns where readers have a functional knowledge of English. Rural areas remain hardlv touched by public library development.
In 1973 a dark period began for libraries. Traditional users of the existing libraries (Asians, Europeans, academicians, research fellows, and associates) fled the oppressive military rule. A shortage of foreign exchange and a lack of appreciation of the role of libraries in the priorities of funding authorities, moreover, meant that a considerable number of periodical subscriptions could not be renewed. For example, the Makerere University library system had more than 2,000 exchange partners and regular donors outside Uganda in 1973, mainly in Britain and the United States. These exchange agreements were cancelled as libraries in Uganda failed to reciprocate. Library budgets dwindled and development almost came to a standstill. Ugandan libraries in the early 1990s were still trying to recover from their decline and revert to the pre-1973 conditions.
Academic Libraries
The largest academic libraries have been associated with Makerere University. The origins of the university can be traced as far back as 1922, when it started as a technical school. It was affiliated with the University of London (194863), then was a College of the University of East Africa (1964-70). In 1970 it became a full-fledged university.
It has a British-style system of organization with II faculties, 2 associated schools, and 2 institutes. Its library system includes the Main Library, founded in 1940, seven sublibraries, and small department collections. In 1985 some University departments were transferred to Kyambogo (site of Uganda Technical College and National Teachers College) and to Nakawa (site of Uganda College of Commerce). Makerere University acquired campuses in both places. According to 1977 estimates, the system had a stock of 400,000 volumes. With assistance from foreign governments, its staff hopes to double the stock in the 1990s.
The Main Library is one of the legal depository libraries in the country under the Deposit Library Act of 1964. The sublibraries benefit from deposits according to their fields of specialization. The Main Library also has a special collection of Africana with concentration on eastern Africa. The sublibraries include the Albert Cook Medical Library; the Faculty of Education Library; the Faculty of Agriculture Library at Kabanyolo; the East African School of Librarianship Library; and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Library. They all enjov a certain degree of autonomy from the Main Library in their fields of specialization.
The oldest and most important is the Albert Cook Medical Library, founded in 1960. It serves the Mulago Hospital Medical School, with a strong concentration on tropical medicine and research literature on medical problems in eastern Africa. It is a depository of World Health Organization publications. The Education Library, founded in 1962 as a separate unit under the auspices of Unesco, periodically issues Education in East Africa: A Selected Bibliography. The Makerere Institute of Social Research Library, founded in 1958 as the East African Institute of Social Research Library, is a center of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research with a strong regional commitment to eastern Africa. The university library system extends its services to serious readers throughout Uganda. With no comparable libraries in the country, it serves as the de facto, though not de jure, national reference library.
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