S Cummings, M Vlak and H van Dam (eds), Women’s information services and networks: A global source book, Royal Tropical Institute Press, Amsterdam, 1999, 176 pp.
Women’s information services are central to women’s research, activism and policy-making. Their collections and holdings provide information on previous research, publications and statistics. Collectively, women’s information services are rich sources of global and local knowledge on women, while an individual information service becomes a centre of excellence on indigenous knowledge about women in that particular location. This global source book is a guide to the location of women’s information services worldwide. It directs users of such information to women’s archives, libraries, documentation centres, networks and publications.
The book is a product of the Mapping the world of women’s information centers project which resulted from the Know How Conference of the International Information Center and Archives for Women (IIAV). The conference was held in Amsterdam in August 1998, and provided a forum and opportunity for networking by a variety of networks and organisations. The project was established to identify and document existing women’s networks and services. Its objective was to make women’s information visible. The project created mind maps of locations and roles of women’s information services and networks. The outcome of the project is presented in three forms: a database, a website and a book. This review is limited to the book, entitled Women’s information services and networks: A global source book.
This source book is an international guide to women’s networks, information centres, libraries, documentation centres, archives and reading resources. The book provides a review of existing women’s networks, a directory of established information resource centres, as well as a bibliography of women’s publications. Obviously, a book of this size cannot and does not purport to provide a comprehensive directory of all the women’s information resource centres and networks in the world, nor does it provide a comprehensive bibliography. It serves only as a guide to known and identified sources while the website project continues to develop into a fully comprehensive guide to women’s services in the world.
The book is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on women’s networks, the second is a directory of women’s information centres, and the third is a bibliography of reading resources in print as well as on the Internet.
The first part consists of four chapters that discuss the state of women’s networks in various parts of the world. Each of the four chapters provides an overview of women’s networks within a region — Africa, Asia, Eastern and Central Europe and the rest of the world. Conspicuous in its absence is a chapter on networks in Western Europe and the Americas. Networks are not phenomena of the less industrialised world and a section on networks in the industrialised world would have been useful to the users of this book for purposes of future collaboration and networking.
The second part is a directory of women’s information centres in the world. The section is subdivided into regions:
• Africa — 27 centres;
• Asia and Pacific — 25 centres;
• Central and South America — 21 centres;
• Eastern Europe — 19 centres;
• Western Europe — 50 centres;
• the Middle East and Africa — 6 centres; and
• North America — 15 centres.
The entries are arranged numerically from 001- 162. A brief history of each listed centre is provided, as well as an outline of its collections, the name of a contact person, a physical address and an email addresses. The listings are in Spanish, French and English, which are the three official languages of the Know How Conference. Towards the end of the section, two types of indexes are provided: a geographical index facilitating access by country, and an organisational index facilitating access by name of organisation.
The third part of the book is a bibliography. The section lists 75 citations with brief annotations of each article and 26 Internet resources. The criteria for the selection of the listed articles are not given. The articles are from various parts of the world and discuss issues about women’s information. A remarkable feature of this section is the commitment that the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam will reproduce and mail any of the listed articles to interested people.
This book fills a gap in research on women by providing a tool for locating information. Although the bulk of listed centres are from Europe (which may have been influenced by the proximity to the IIAV), the book is nonetheless a useful guide to centres and services in other parts of the world. For instance, the book lists 27 African women’s information centres. The list is by no means exhaustive. At the time of going to press, more information on centres in Africa was still trickling in. However, despite its limited listing of African women’s services, the book is an essential current guide to African women’s information services. Furthermore, the book is a critical tool for researchers dealing with women’s issues who may not have Internet access. Such researchers would therefore not benefit from the Internet version of the project.
Collaboration, networking and resource-sharing are key components of women’s research and activism. These facilitate the co-ordinated development of knowledge on and about women. Isolated research and activism result in the duplication of efforts and uneconomic usage of resources. In order to break the isolation and facilitate the sharing of research and information on activism, women’s networks have emerged. The increase in the numbers of such networks necessitates the creation of a ‘network of networks’ of women’s services. This book provides such a kind of network. It serves as an instrument that will link people and institutions that work in the same area, while also enabling access to resources housed in widespread locations in the global village.
Buhle Mbambo
University of Botswana