Oral traditions and libraries

I've been gratified by how much interest there has been in Sylvia's work on Oral traditions and libraries. I wasn't surprised, I actually expected that to be the case, but it has been great to seen the enormous interest by such a wide range of people at the conference. She was interviewed by a number of people, including a renowned local journalist Pius Sawa. Mr. Sawa is a young Ugandan journalist who has already won British journalism awards for his work with child soldiers in Africa. If you google his name and Radio Sapientia you will see a lot of his work.

But it is clear the Sylvia's call for libraries to incorporate the use of traditional methods of oral communication rather than relying on the western model of print collections struct a cord with people attending the conference. It shows the power of librarians listening to needs of their local constituencies, whether they are undergraduate students at Penn States or local farmers in Africa. We can make ourselves relevant if we listen hard enough.