Abstract — Inglés
Kent Smith provides a personal, often humorous account of his four years (1984-1988) in Honduras as a United States Information Service (USIS) library fellow. Although the author briefly describes important national and university libraries in Tegucigalpa, his real focus are the public libraries in remote rural areas of the country — their concerns, needs, and prospects for development. Determined to locate rural public libraries so that they could participate in the Central American Book Initiative (CABI), a USIS program to make available U.S. trade and textbooks, Smith set off on a two-month odyssey by jeep to visit remote Honduran villages and gained a first-hand knowledge of public libraries there. Among the problems he encountered were makeshift facilities, lack of trained library professionals, and inadequate funding for even the most basic collection building.
Despite an overwhelmingly negative appraisal of public library service in Honduras, the author offers several positive suggestions for future action such as continued USIS support, specifically USIS-sponsored training workshops; UNESCO projects aimed at stimulating public library development; a revitalization of the Honduran Library Association; and — perhaps most importantly cooperation with Honduran government officials to enhance their understanding of the important role libraries play in their country's socio-economic development.
Abstract — Español
En la ruta por las bibliotecas públicas en Honduras
Kent Smith proporciona un relato personal y muchas veces humorístico de los cuatro años que permaneció en Honduras (1984–1988) como miembro del Servicio Informativo de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica (United States Information Service, USIS). Aún cuando el autor describe brevemente la existencia de bibliotecas importantes en Tegucigalpa, su enfoque real son las bibliotecas públicas en áreas rurales y remotas de país, sus inquietudes, sus necesidades y sus esperanzas de desarrollo. Determinado a localizar las bibliotecas públicas y rurales con el fin de que se incluyeran en la Iniciativa Centro Americana del Libro ( Central American Book Initiative, CABI) que es un programa de USIS creado con el objeto de poner a disposición de estas áreas libros de texto y comerciales provenientes de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica, Smith realizó una odisea de dos meses de viaje en jeep para visitar villas remotas en Honduras y obtener el conocimiento de primera mano de las bibliotecas públicas en esta región. Dentro de los problemas que enfrentó se encuentran instalaciones provisionales, falta de capacitación de bibliotecarios profesionales, y apoyo financiero inadecuado aún para el desarrollo más básico de colecciones.
Independientemente de la evaluación negativa del estado de los servicios públicos existentes en Honduras, el autor ofrece varias sugestiones positivas para la acción futura tales como el apoyo continuo de USIS; talleres de capacitación subsionados por USIS, proyectos de la UNESCO designados para estimular el desarrollo de las bibliotecas públicas; la revitalización de la Asociación de Bibliotecarios de Honduras; y quizá y más importante la cooperación de funcionarios del gobierno de Honduras para mejorar su entendimiento del papel importante que las bibliotecas juegan en el desarrollo socioeconómico del país.
In November 1984 I became a library/book fellow for the United States Information Service (USIS) in Honduras. My year of service was extended, eventually lasting until April 1988. The traditional duties of library fellows are to work with USIS-sponsored libraries in the host country. In Honduras I assisted two libraries, one in Tegucigalpa, the capital, and the other in San Pedro Sula. Typically, a library fellow works closely with the librarians in these institutions to provide training and improve skills in librarianship. When I began, I had not an inkling that my work would extend to the four comers of the country, including many remote Honduran hamlets.
My arrival in Honduras was propitious, largely because it coincided with a tremendous upsurge of U.S. government interest in Central America, largely over a concern that the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua might spill across its borders and adversely affect its neighbors. The Reagan administration requested and received money to fund several new programs, some of which involved books and libraries. My responsibilities were expanded to include the administration of a new book program known as the Central American Book Initiative (CABI). I visited libraries throughout the country, especially libraries outside the normal purview of USIS.
This article addresses what I learned about Honduran libraries as I distributed books to the far reaches of the country. It reports on the current status of public libraries in rural Honduras, their concerns and needs. Along the way there were misadventures and revelations. This report concludes with some observations about the future of public libraries in rural Honduras and their prospects for development.
Honduras covers 43,277 square miles, slightly larger than Tennessee, and ranks as second largest of the six Central American republics. In 1988 the population was estimated at 4.8 million, about 111 persons per square mile. The population is unequally distributed throughout the country: the northeastern part of the country has 45 percent of the land area but only 9 percent of the population. Despite increased migration of the population to urban centers, Honduras remains the least urbanized country in Central America. Approximately 60 percent of the population continues to live in rural areas.
Most Honduran Indians were assimilated long ago into an Hispano-American culture. Today mestizos, a mixture of whites and Indians, comprise more than 90 percent of the population. Some Black Caribs or Garifuna live in the cities, but most are found on the north coast and in the Bay Islands. In Eastern Honduras there remain small groups of Misquito, Paya, Sumo and Rama Indians. Spanish is the predominant language, although north coast blacks and most Bay Islanders speak English, and Misquito is still frequently encountered in Eastern Honduras.
Bananas, coffee, lumber, shellfish, cattle and minerals (mostly lead, silver and zinc) generate more than 80 percent of export income.
Education is free and compulsory through the sixth grade. In 1986 primary school enrollment included an estimated 91 percent of children in the relevant age group. Yet the percentage of students who complete primary education is low, especially in rural areas. Most students attending school in rural areas do not maintain literacy once they finish. The Honduras illiteracy rate remains at about 40 percent of the population over 10 years of age.
Poverty is the most significant problem Honduras faces. Infant mortality rates remain high, and life expectancy, low. Except for Haiti and Nicaragua, Honduras is the poorest country in the region, with an annual per capita income estimated in 1986 at US$800.
This paper focuses on public libraries outside the major metropolitan areas of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, which contain the best libraries. The National Library is in Tegucigalpa, located in what was once the home of the Honduran national hero, Francisco Morazan. It serves more as a public library, being heavily utilized by students. By law the National Library should receive three copies of all works published in Honduras, but in practice there is no enforcement of this regulation.
The library at the National University (UNAH) includes two branch campus libraries and the National Medical Library. Most of the country’s professional librarians work in the university system. The UNAH staff performs centralized cataloging and other services for all libraries in the system.
School libraries in Honduras have possibly had the greatest impact on access to libraries for rural Hondurans. Beginning with a 1967 initiative and continuing under excellent leadership from the library staff of the Ministry of Education, new school libraries have been opened in rural areas of the country each year. There is a useful, ongoing program of training for school librarians.
Two government ministries, the Ministry of Municipal Governments and the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Information, share responsibilities for public libraries. These duties include providing facilities, staff training, and materials; but the miserable economic situation limits greatly their ability to fulfill their mission. The largest public library is the Rómulo E. Duron in Tegucigalpa. Information available about public libraries outside Tegucigalpa is minimal.
The Central American Book Initiative
USIS began the Central American Book Initiative (CABI) in 1985. With few in-country publications and high tariffs on imported books, an average cost of $40 for a textbook meant that books were not available to most Hondurans. By making translations of U.S. trade books and textbooks accessible, USIS also wanted to counter the importation of free or highly-subsidized Soviet and Cuban textbooks.
Initially USIS received $70,000 to be dispersed among Honduran libraries. A catalog of approximately 200 titles was produced from Mary Turner’s 1983 compilation of Spanish translations of books by U.S. authors. The titles chosen came mostly from large publishing houses like McGraw-Hill and PrenticeHall. The only stipulations on titles selected were that they be written by United States authors, that they represent any field of knowledge except science and technology, and that children's books be excluded. The two exclusions were made because they represent subject areas and population groups that fall outside USIS cultural and political objectives. CABI also provided hundreds of pre-selected sets of 24 titles from the Limusa Publishing house.
Finally, thousands of sets of a 10-book collection known as the Ladder Series were made available for distribution. These books, considered to be classics, are printed in English using controlled, simplified vocabularies. They were to be sent to bilingual schools and to programs teaching English as a second language.
My assignment was to identify public libraries to participate in the CABI program. This was not easy. It was difficult to learn what public libraries existed, because no up-to-date library directories existed. The most recent Honduran directory had been published in 1972, and visits to the Ministry of Municipal Governments and the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Information yielded no updated information.
Faced with this situation, I decided to update the directory myself and to discuss library matters directly with the people involved. I divided the country into four regions and apportioned two weeks to each area to locate libraries and librarians. The regions were:
— The North Coast: the departments of Atlántida, Colón, and Cortés
— The Southwest Region: Choluteca, El Paraíso, Intibuca, and Valle
— The Western Sector: the departments of Copán, Lempira, Ocotepeque, and Santa Bárbara
— The Eastern Zone: Comayagua, La Paz, Olancho, and Yoro.
Arrangements were made with the Honduran military to deliver books to public libraries not accessible by vehicle. This included the Bay Islands and the department of Gracias a Dios in Eastern Honduras.
Inevitable problems were encountered at the outset. For example, a large shipment of CABI books disappeared. Months later the books were located, inexplicably sidetracked to a customs warehouse in San Pedro Sula. The warehouse stood next to a small food plant that processed chili peppers. During their warehouse stay a fine dusting of chili powder had insinuated its way into the boxes of books. When the boxes were opened and the books distributed, there was much sneezing and misery to accompany them!
After several postponements I finally took to the road in March 1986 in a Toyota jeep. An unanticipated and ongoing problem I encountered while driving were the periodic roadblocks set up by the Honduran Public Security Forces. The roadblocks existed primarily to locate Hondurans without proper documents, to return soldiers who were absent without leave, and occasionally to recruit young men for the armed services. There was also interest in me, a foreign librarian traveling far from traditional tourist paths in a jeep loaded with cargo. Many of the young men who stopped me appeared to be genuinely thrilled when they learned I was carrying books. To facilitate my transition through these checkpoints I would often allow them to select a few titles for their own personal libraries.
One of the early visits was to a small town close to the Nicaraguan border in the department of Choluteca. The road to this village, Moralica, was dusty and bumpy. The last stretch required crossing the Choluteca River — about 100 yards — without benefit of a bridge. Fortunately it was during the dry season, and the river was running quite low. In mid-river the engine died and refused to restart. The map showed that Moralica was less than one mile beyond the river, so I waded across the remainder of the Choluteca and walked to the village. As I walked I prayed that an unexpected deluge of rain would not suddenly fall, carrying jeep and contents toward the Pacific.
Moralica was in the midst of a celebration when I arrived, a fiesta of its patron saint. They were most happy to welcome a visitor to their festivities. When I explained my predicament to the mayor, he insisted that first I sit and have lunch. I did, uneasily, certain that every cloud that passed overhead carried my doom. After lunch the mayor mobilized the citizens, found the local mechanic, and we all returned to the Choluteca. The jeep was still there and the mechanic could not start it. We decided to push the jeep all the way to town. That night the mayor offered me a room in his home, with a hammock to sleep in. I could hear what I was told were mortar rounds landing a few miles away on the Honduran/Nicaraguan border. I caught an early bus out the next morning to find someone to fix the jeep. With the electrical system replaced, I was on the road again. As it happened, the public library I had gone to see in Moralica had burned down years earlier and had never been rebuilt. In gratitude to the inhabitants of the town for their help and hospitality, I left them a box of Limusa books for their school, which also had no library.
Other misadventures followed. A flat tire in the remote central highlands of Comayagua became a serious problem when the spare tire did not fit the wheel. Another long, dusty walk ensued.
A final incident, suggesting that one does not always learn from previous mistakes, also involved a river, this one the Cuyamel in Northern Honduras. On this particular journey I was lost. Shortly before I had left Omoa, a small town located on the Caribbean and, according to my eight-year-old guidebook, famous for a fort built by the Spanish to protect the region from marauding pirates. A wrong turn (I later learned) placed me on a private road belonging to General Humberto Regalado; it led to his ranch and dairy farm. At the time of my unintended visit General Regalado was the chief-of-staff of the Honduran military. I followed the road to the farmhouse and the barn, where further progress was impeded by a locked gate. A dairy worker came out of the barn and told me where I was. He also told me it was no problem, as he unlocked the gate and asked if he could ride with me to his house. On the other side of the fence the road disappeared into the Cuyamel River. This was no gentle stream but a major river. My companion told me that jeeps forded the river daily, so I plunged ahead. The water began to leak in under the door, and about one-third the way across the engine stopped and would not restart. I was stranded in a river again!
About this time the military arrived to save me from myself. After explaining to them what had happened and convincing them I was not part of some subversive plot against the general, they were most helpful. They called for a nearby bulldozer. While we waited I amused myself photographing young children using the roof of the jeep as a diving board. The bulldozer arrived and dragged the jeep across the river, where it miraculously started up.
Despite the anxiety and misery brought about by such mishaps, several positive events resulted from the journey:
1) The Honduran library directory was updated for the Honduran government;
2) Fifty-six towns and villages were visited;
3) More than 4,500 books were distributed to 59 libraries;
4) Useful contacts were made with local libraries and local leaders interested in improving library service in their communities.
Governmental Library Support
The two governmental bodies most responsible for and in contact with rural public libraries are the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Information and the Ministry of Municipal Governments. Their support of libraries has been severely restricted by the ever-present budgetary constraints brought on by the country's economic conditions. The effect this has had on the library scene is underscored by the large number of public libraries listed in the 1972 Honduran library directory that had closed their doors by the time of my 1986 tour.
Buildings
Of the 59 libraries I visited only two, one in Santa Rosa de Copán and one in Puerto Cortés, had buildings constructed specifically to be libraries. The Puerto Cortés library was funded entirely by business and industry in Puerto Cortés.
Municipal governments usually find makeshift quarters for their libraries, often in a corner of the municipal building or a storage facility. In two cases, private homes were used. Budget cuts had forced several libraries to move from rented facilities; in two cases the libraries could not find new locations and the books had been boxed up and stored. Generally local officials demonstrated resourcefulness, making the best of difficult situations.
Staffing and Training
There is a shortage of trained librarians in Honduras. The director of the library at the National University (UNAH) said there are only 10 Hondurans with library degrees working in the country. All of them work either in the university system or in library services within the Ministry of Education.
In rural Honduras most people working in libraries have no training. They are little more than watchmen; many are unpaid volunteers. In several cases the librarian is appointed by the mayor as part of the local political spoils system. The mayor in Puerto Lempira informed me that he changed librarians every three months; unemployment was so severe in the area that he used job sharing as a way to help several families economically. Seven librarians I visited had received some kind of library training, usually offered by the school library program of the Ministry of Education.
As a result of my library visits two USIS-sponsored library workshops were held for rural librarians. Participation at these workshops was excellent and enthusiastic, but such workshops obviously do not meet the need for trained librarians.
Consideration has been given to establishing a library school at the National University. Another option contemplated is to create a temporary program that would function only long enough to fill the immediate shortage of librarians. Many questions remain to be addressed before such a program can become a reality.
Another possible means of providing some training would be to revitalize the dormant Honduran Library Association, which used to hold occasional library workshops throughout the country. Library conferences and professional associations are two ways to combine forces to improve library service. One difficulty is that the work of such organizations and instructional activities will be the responsibility of the small cadre of professional librarians, whose current duties already stretch their abilities; additional tasks could reduce their effectiveness. Despite these concerns, initial efforts and meetings took place prior to my departure from Honduras in 1988.
Concerns will remain even with a larger number of trained librarians. How will proper salaries be provided? With few exceptions, librarians receive minimum wage or less. The librarian at the Puerto Cortes library receives an acceptable salary from the Port Authority, which sees the library as a community service to which it should contribute. Catacamos in the department of Olancho has a paraprofessional in charge of its library. This library is strongly supported by local labor unions. A local benefactor in the town of Juticalpa, also in Olancho department, provided his own library, facilities to house it, and a paraprofessional to oversee the collection. These were delightful exceptions to the rule. For the foreseeable future most people in charge of public libraries in rural Honduras will function as little more than caretakers.
Collection Building
The impoverished local publishing industry and the high importation costs limit access to books. Library book budgets rarely exist, so books are acquired through gifts and discards from other libraries. A balanced collection of up–to–date material is a rarity. The Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Information tries to send to the public library of each departmental capital one copy of each title it publishes, but I saw no evidence that they were able to carry through on their intent. In most cases, CABI books represented the first infusion of new book stock in many, many years.
Even CABI donations did not always go where they were supposed to. One recipient of CABI materials in the eastern department of Gracias a Dios had his books delivered by the military. When I flew out to visit the village a year later, I was unable to locate the new books in the town’s library. Trying to find out why the books had not been delivered, I was directed to the mayor’s house. Inside his living room I found his bookcases full of CABI books. He had not put the books in the library for fear they would be stolen.
Librarians most often mentioned general reference materials — encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs and atlases — as their priority for acquisition.
Conclusions
Library development throughout the country has been slow, but for rural Honduras the pace of change has been glacial. Without sufficient government support, without funds for proper facilities and collection development, and without adequate staffing and training, the short-term outlook is not favorable. The economic crisis of the 1980s continues to paralyze efforts at library improvement. Where can help be found in the midst of this ongoing economic difficulty?
Continued USIS support, especially in areas of collection development and staff training, would be helpful. In Mexico an initiative has expanded public library service from 350 municipalities to over 2,000. The U.S. government assisted in this effort with a gift of books to develop standard collections of textbooks for the new libraries. UNESCO helped make a difference for school libraries in Honduras in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Ministry of Education and UNESCO began a joint project to create almost 400 school libraries.
UNESCO provided consultants, equipment, and books. Perhaps UNESCO could now consider another initiative, this time to develop public library service. There exists in Honduras a small core of professional, dedicated people in librarianship who would be very capable of taking advantage of such an initiative.
Library programs require long-term planning and government understanding as well as patient, consistent, long-continued execution. Within the Honduran government there remains a lack of understanding about the impact library and information service can have on the country’s socio-economic development. It is essential for librarians to work with government officials to assist them in appreciating the contributions libraries can make toward the national good. Ultimately, library development is dependent upon achieving such an understanding.
Ken Smith is a teacher in Dallas, Texas, and a former library fellow with the United States Information Service (USIS) in Central America.
© 1992 Rosary College