(NLSA) has been awarded a R32m grant by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support a pilot project to strengthen selected Public Libraries in South Africa. This is fantastic news, as the grant should consolidate public libraries as community hubs with re-skilled staff able to work with new technologies in a time when the entire sector is feeling fiscal pressure from many quarters. “In an age where economic, educational, health, and social opportunities increasingly depend on access to the Internet, lack of access means lack of opportunity. Only 35 per cent of the world’s population is connected to the Internet, and people in rural and poor communities are the least likely to have online access or the skills to navigate the digital world.

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Emerging markets are largely driving educational app usage, with four of the countries with a larger than average market for education apps being South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and India. This is according to MEF (formerly “Mobile Entertainment Forum”, which has released the third report in its Global Consumer Insights  series, this time on mobile education. Apps have changed how many people access the internet, from banking to reading the daily news, entertainment, and, most importantly, education.

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The Author Hub at BookExpo America (BEA) is the annual event’s first effort to follow its sister London Book Fair in creating a specific site on the trade-show floor for entrepreneurial authors. It operates this week in its inaugural iteration under the auspices of Saturday’s uPublishU Conference at BEA. Unlike the London edition of the concept — which functions as a sort of drop-in lounge with seminars and demonstrations — the BEA Author Hub is a working center in which authors have bought their memberships, either Basic or Premium. Read Porter Anderson’s report on what attendees can expect from Book Expo America this week.

Writing in The New York Review of Books, Robert Darnton takes a comprehensive look at what he calls the “world digital library.” After examining the world of scientific and academic journals, where the numbers are simply overwhelming, he investigates several companies working to make books accessible. It is a compelling read full of fascinating information. Darnton writes that we are coming closer to a truly international digital public library citing Open Access movements in the UK, UK and France.

Nal’ibali launched a Charter on Children’s Literacy Rights on World Book Day, Wednesday April 23, 2014.
The charter, freely available in all 11 official South African languages as a poster or download, highlights the range of literacy experiences all children should have to enable them to learn to read and write.

Members of the public are encouraged to download a copy of the charter in any language from the Nal’ibali website, www.nalibali.org or email info@nalibali.org to request a copy.