April 4, 2007

Junk to students, the future to Ghanaians

By Raveena Aulakh
raulakh@uwo.ca

As oblivious students milled around, Agyeman wiped the books clean with tissues and put them aside. "I was so angry that I couldn't say a word," he says.

Physics, math, chemistry and even books of literature were abandoned along with half-eaten burgers, smashed beer bottles and mangled cans of pop.

Agyeman, 45, had just returned from Ghana in West Africa, where there are few public libraries. "And here, I came across dumped books," he says, rolling his eyes.

He spent restless nights mourning our throwaway culture until he hit upon an idea he was convinced had potential. He wanted to put together a library in Ghana with discarded books from Western.

Seven years later, Agyeman is set to officially open a 50,000-book public library in his hometown of Kumasi in central Ghana next month.

Most books are from Western, discarded by students, preserved by Agyeman.

Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana, is home to many educational institutions, including the University of Science and Technology, a premier facility for higher learning. These institutions have libraries but ordinary people don't have access to them. The sole public library in Kumasi is caught in a time warp. It hasn't seen new books for decades and the magazines date back to the '90s.

In Ghana, where roughly half the population lives on a dollar a day, buying books is simply out of reach for most.

Photo courtesy of Fredua Agyeman

Volunteers at the library-in-making in Kumasi, Ghana, go through a new lot of books from London.

Agyeman's library will plug that gap, from textbooks to popular fiction to general reference.

For Pamela McKenzie, a professor of library sciences at Western, it's an admirable effort. "I have a sense of how much work it is to locate appropriate books," she says.

McKenzie is associated with Librarians Without Borders, an organization started at Western's Faculty of Information and Media Studies two years ago, which is developing a nursing and medical Portuguese-language library in Angola.

"Logistically, it's a huge endeavour to get books somewhere else," she says.

It takes all of Agyeman's skills to do that.

On a dreary winter afternoon, he's at Western's Used Book Store packing books into cardboard boxes. He's cramming some vertically to get the maximum in the limited space when he spies Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason in a pile - and jubilantly holds it up for employees at the store. "This one will have a long waiting period to read," he predicts.

As boxes fill up, he seals and loads them into a minivan.

A Western graduate in 1986, Agyeman repeats this cycle once every six weeks. On average, he packs in 20 to 25 boxes every time he visits. This time, almost two dozen boxes are ready for shipment.

A 40-tonne container is nearly full of cardboard boxes.
This consignment will sail for Ghana sometime this month; Agyeman will follow soon after and the library will be formally inaugurated in May.

"I'm thrilled. It's a dream I've been nurturing for years. The project's become my passion in life," says Agyeman.

"He lives for it," confirms Renate Wald, his mentor in the project. Wald is the manager at the Used Book Store.

Agyeman says she is as instrumental in the initiation of the library.
The two had a fortuitous meeting six years ago, when Agyeman was looking for books and Wald was battling with the chronic problem of plenty - books students don't pick up.

The store stocks used books put up for sale by students. If the books are not bought within a specific period of time, students have to take them back. Many don't. Every term, hundreds of books, mostly old editions, end up being unclaimed and stacked up to the ceiling on shelves in the store's backroom.

Photo by Raveena Aulakh

Western's Used Book Store's manager Renate Wald and Fredua Agyeman check books to decide which are appropriate for the library in Ghana.

A major headache for Wald once is now a coup of sorts. She's glued photos of the library-in-making at Kumasi and is happy to tell curious students about it.

Agyeman's eyes constantly dart to these snapshots from the library.

Some half-dozen photographs are haphazardly stuck to the wall. There's a close-up of a smiling woman sorting books; another photo shows a boy stacking books on steel shelves; a wide angle captures the building where the library is housed.

If the books dumped in garbage initiated the project and Wald was the catalyst, the availability of the building, a flat-roofed structure, firmly put the project on track.

The building was bequeathed by Agyeman's uncle. It's been repaired, white-washed and bookshelves are put up by volunteers as consignments come in from Canada.

While the Used Book Store is the major source for books, it's not the only one. The University of Guelph has donated books twice. Paul Catto of Basically Books at Westmount Mall has donated in past years. "A library in Africa is a great idea," he says. Catto has given Agyeman general fiction and reference books. "You can't go wrong with those - everyone loves them."

Books are not the only contribution; used computers and printers have also been a part of the consignment to Ghana. "Nothing is junk for me," says Agyeman.

Not even computers considered defunct. He tells about a man in Kumasi who, he says, makes computers flicker back to life.

He sends about one consignment a year. If money weren't an issue, he would scour for more books and send more.

It's the only time his smile disappears and a frown clouds his face.

Agyeman, who does odd jobs to help pay the shipment charges, calculates having spent almost $40,000 for freight and related expenses.

For nearly a year, he's been working at a construction site.

He can't take up a permanent job as he would then not be able to go to Ghana regularly.

Ever since he hit upon the idea of the library, everything else, including his family, has faded in the background. The library took its toll - Agyeman went through a rough patch personally. His wife, though appreciative of the idea, didn't like that it kept him away for long periods. But everything is hunky-dory now, he says.

He says putting together the library wasn't easy.

Rebecca Jansen understands. Co-executive director of Librarians Without Borders, she is working on developing the language library in Angola.

It's in planning stages but Jansen says even as a group, they face multiple challenges - computers aren't easily accessible in Angola and there's the language barrier. Librarians Without Borders depends on a translator for communication.

"I guess he doesn't face the language problem but any project like this takes immense time and energy. I think it's admirable that he's doing it on his own."

Agyeman did have the option of outside funding: he once explored United Nations help but its red tape put him off permanently.

"I didn't want a bureaucratic nightmare to destroy my dream," he says.

Months of sweating at odd jobs are forgotten when he goes to Ghana. As young volunteers sort through new books, Agyeman says the look of wonder on their faces makes up for everything.

For them, books are a veritable treasure. One time when volunteers were browsing through a new batch, they found a crackling $100 bill nestled between pages. "They weren't sure what it was and so brought it to me. I gave them Ghana cedis worth $100," says Agyeman.

At other times, they've come across lyrical love letters, unusual recipes and illegible notes. Everything is new and they hang on to it all.

Photo by Raveena Aulakh

Fredua Agyeman takes another lot of donated books from Western's Used Book Store.

University students run the library. Anyone can walk in and browse through books, magazines and look up the Internet on computers, all for free.

They've been bombarding Agyeman with e-mails - asking him when he's coming and how many more books he's collected.

"We're thrilled," says Nana Kwasi, the coordinator at the library in Kumasi, who's working on cataloguing. "We want the library to be opened soon."

For Agyeman, the formal opening will be an indication to move on.

He's already thinking about starting a library in villages in the area. His father is the chief of a village near Kumasi and the books he's taken to the village to read are often the first that children have seen or touched.

Once, when some kids gathered to gawk at books, Agyeman had to explain they didn't have any black magic in them.

According to UNICEF, the adult education rate in Ghana is 66 per cent for males and 50 per cent for women. It's another reason for Agyeman to take the library to villages.

But he wants to take a step at a time.

Right now, what's uppermost in his mind is a name for the library. It has to include Canada. "Well, the books have come from Canada."

Including books salvaged from trash seven years ago - the ones that started it all.