The world is awash in data-by 2020 it is expected that there will be approximately 40 trillion gigabytes of data in existence, with that number doubling every 2 to 3 years. However, data production is not equal in all places-the global data landscape remains heavily concentrated on English-speaking, urban, and relatively affluent locations within the Global North. This inequality can contribute to new forms of digital and data colonialism. One partial solution to these issues may come in the form of crowdsourcing and volunteer geographic information (VGI), which allow Global South populations to produce their own data. Despite initial optimism about these approaches, many challenges and research gaps remain in understanding the opportunities and barriers that organizations endemic to the Global South face in carrying out their own sustainable crowdsourcing projects. What opportunities and barriers do these endemic organizations face when trying to carry out mapping projects driven by their own goals and desires? This paper contributes answers to this question by examining a VGI project that is currently mapping public libraries across the African continent. Our findings highlight how dramatically digital divides can bias crowdsourcing results; the importance of local cultural views in influencing participation in crowdsourcing; and the continued importance of traditional, authoritative organizations for crowdsourcing. These findings offer important lessons for researchers and organizations attempting to develop their own VGI projects in the Global South.

This article sheds light on the collection and use of data by libraries in sixteen countries across Africa. It highlights the challenges that librarians and library organizations face in gathering, analyzing, and presenting data of various types for self-advocacy. In this study, qualitative data from a meeting of library representatives was analyzed to identify main challenges including: data integrity in terms of completeness, accuracy, credibility, and relevancy; infrastructure; capacity; local investment in libraries; time; and participation of data collectors and respondents. Implications for those collecting data on African libraries as well as those supporting the use of data in these contexts are discussed. The purpose of this paper is not to feed into representations of African libraries as chronically under-resourced and lacking in capacity, but rather, to constructively engage with first-hand accounts of how librarians are experiencing and navigating barriers in order to offer potential avenues forward for the field.

Public libraries and development organizations share many common goals that make them strong potential partners in the Global South. In spite of these commonalities, libraries are often overlooked as development partners. This is unfortunate because these partnerships could allow librarians to more fully and effectively participate in the development of their communities. This paper explores strategies that libraries might employ to make themselves more visible to development organizations. It does so through analysis of interviews with practitioners who have funded or implemented development projects across countries in Africa. We find that these practitioners are open to working more with libraries, but that it will take a lot of work on the part of public libraries to accomplish broad shifts in perception amongst development agencies. Collecting and openly sharing data on the output and impact of public libraries is a first step in this work, but these efforts must also be augmented through increased marketing and networking by libraries. Libraries need to build internal capacity to use data to drive advocacy efforts and attract funding from development donors.

Many libraries in the Global South do not collect comprehensive data about themselves, which creates challenges in terms of local and international visibility. Crowdsourcing is an effective tool that engages the public to collect missing data, and it has proven to be particularly valuable in countries where governments collect little public data. Whereas crowdsourcing is often used within fields that have high levels of development funding, such as health, the authors believe that this approach would have many benefits for the library field as well. They present qualitative and quantitative evidence from 23 African countries involved in a crowdsourcing project to map libraries. The authors find benefits in terms of increased connections between stakeholders, capacity-building, and increased local visibility. These findings demonstrate the potential of crowdsourced approaches for tasks such as mapping to benefit libraries and similarly positioned institutions in the Global South in multifaceted ways.

Across Africa, libraries are contributing to development in their countries. However, this work remains largely unrecognized by international stakeholders in development. To bridge this gap, this research examines the current perceptions of libraries among development organizations and asks how libraries may gain visibility as partners. Interviews with development practitioners indicate that perceptions of libraries remain low and limited but allow for possible roles for libraries as community-embedded institutions and development resource hubs. To engage these roles, the collection of output data is important in order to demonstrate the capacity of libraries to participate meaningfully in development work.