At Chancellor College in Zomba, Malawi the SADC IADP project is setting up a pilot to see if an online library system, used with some success in South Africa, can add value to teaching and learning at the institution. Ten machines positioned in the central library access the IADP's online library of copyrighted e-books. During a visit this month the system was tested and while not perfect on its first trial, it does work. Individual pages from the books are delivered to the terminals for perusal by the reader one at a time.

However, what concerns me currently is that the online library system uses technology to preserve copyright at the expense of usability. Undue effort is placed on the reader to navigate the complex system of rights and permissions, which is ultimately a form of gate keeping, before any reading and learning can take place.

In an environment where connectivity is poor and access to computers at a premium I question if this particular model will work in the Malawian context. Also if I think back to my days at university there is no memory of an officious librarian following me through the library stacks demanding identification every time I pulled down a volume to peruse? Has technology therefore empowered publisher's to change their core function from distribution to gate keeping? I understand their concern, a loss of revenue, but are they now over compensating because technology offers greater control than was possible before?

We are working currently to try to preserve the concerns of the publishers but also deploy a model that adds real value to the student and the lecturers in Malawi. The next few months will be interesting as we try to streamline the model to support the needs of both publishers and students.

Andrew Moore (andryn@iafrica.com)