Gates Foundation to Wire Chilean Libraries

By Andrew Albanese -- Críticas, 2/1/2002

Public libraries in Chile will soon be wired thanks to a substantial grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Seattle-based Foundation will donate more than $9.2 millon for a range of computer services in all 368 of Chile's public libraries. Officials say the grant will fund an estimated 1,800 computers, 17 computer training labs, and four mobile laptop labs. In addition to supplying computers, the grant will also bring 16 Chilean librarians to Seattle throughout the next year for training at the foundation's headquarters.

Clara Budnik, from the Chilean Directorate of Libraries, Archives, and Museums (DIBAM), will administer the grant and oversee the project. Budnik said the initiative would foster much-needed technology training and make information available to all Chileans without discrimination, "stimulating the generation of local contents in each community and strengthening the transfer of acquired knowledge to future generations."

In addition to the Gates Foundation's contribution, the Chilean Library program will be further bolstered by contributions from a number of other entities within Chile. Microsoft Chile, will chip in another $1.2 million to the project and as many as nine other Chilean "nonprofit organizations and departments" are reportedly set to contribute manpower and other resources for the training component of the program. And the Chilean government has announced that it will also commit to $6.7 million, bringing the estimated total project cost to more than $20 million--an extraordinary and welcome development for Chile, currently suffering through a weak economy. With prices of copper, one of Chile's main exports, reaching an all-time low and the value of the peso continuing to fall, much of the Chilean government has struggled to maintain services.

Officials at the Gates Foundation say the Chilean library program is their first effort outside of North America and the United Kingdom aimed at providing low-income individuals with access to technology and digital information through public libraries. Chile was selected for the grant because of the country's impressive commitment to providing library services for its citizens. "The Chilean effort to expand public access to digital information is a tremendous example of the power of partnerships," said Richard Akeroyd, executive director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Libraries and Public Access to Information programs. "The impressive set of partners that the Chileans have assembled inspires us."