Vol. 3, No. 2, Spring 1995, Covering the Former Soviet Union and East Central Europe
Western Book Donation Programs Effective, But Need Improvement
The Civic Education Project recently completed a study of the
effectiveness of U.S. book and journal donations to the former Soviet
Union and East Central Europe, based on 700 surveys of librarians,
faculty members, and university officials, plus a large number of
interviews with donor organizations. Following are some of the key
points from the Executive Summary.
- In general the need for such donations is great throughout the
region. Over 70 percent of faculty members surveyed claimed they
did not have "reasonable" access to "essential" foreign journals.
-
Book and journal donations are reaching readers in Eastern
Europe. One-third of the librarians surveyed stated that more
than 75 percent of the Western books acquired in the past two years
were donations.
-
Despite the efforts of donor organizations, broad access to donated
books remains a widespread problem. "Searches conducted by CEP
for donated books and journals [found that]...in the majority of cases,
less than 30 percent of the donated books are broadly accessible to the
reading public. Diversion, poor cataloguing, 'warehousing' of
donations by libraries and severely restrictive conditions for access
to donated materials are disturbingly widespread."
-
Quantity of books donated too often outstrips quality.
Editor's note: Groups seeking to provide Christian
literature to new seminary and Bible institute libraries and existing
public and university libraries would do well to carefully consider the
findings of the CEP survey.
Copies of the Executive Summary of the report and the entire report itself exist on-line.
The URL for the Executive Summary (9Kb) is
ftp://capstan.cis.yale.edu/pub/civic-education/book-donations-report/00_Summary.txt.
The URL for the full text of the report (108Kb) is
ftp://capstan.cis.yale.edu/pub/civic-education/book-donations-report/Book_Donations.txt.
Copies of the report which can be printed in Macintosh or Windows
format also exist in the Civic Education FTP Directory. For more
information contact: Civic Education Project, Box 205445 Yale
Station, New Haven, CT 06520-5445; tel: 203-781-0263; fax:
203-781-0265; e-mail: cep@minerav.cis.yale.edu. 
"Western Book Donation Programs Effective, But Need Improvement" East-West Church & Ministry Report, 3 (Spring 1995), 7.
Written permission is required for reprinting or electronic distribution of any portion of the East-West Church & Ministry Report.
© 1995 East-West Church and Ministry Report
ISSN 1069-5664
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