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Lubuto in North America

Jane Meyers is a professional librarian with over 20 years' experience working with and living in Africa. She lived in Malawi for nearly four years, developing a network of research libraries for the country's Ministry of Agriculture, under a World Bank project, and pioneering CD-ROM applications for Africa in the mid-1980's. Ten years later she returned to neighboring Zambia, accompanying her husband for a three-year posting. There, as Jane worked on projects for the American Library and for Johns Hopkins University, she became increasingly involved with services to street children offered by the Fountain of Hope, a drop-in shelter in Lusaka. She established a reading program, served on the Board, raised funds, and created a library for the children, among her many contributions to the center. On her return to the U.S. in 2001, she developed the concept, approach and organization of the Lubuto Library Project, based on the success and impact of the library in Lusaka.

It was becoming a mother, volunteering in her children's schools and with an organization to support child survivors of the Rwanda genocide, and working at the Cheshire Cat bookstore that prepared Jane to go in a different direction professionally when she moved to Zambia. She had taken perhaps 1,000 good children's books with her, knowing (from the Malawi experience) how precious and inaccessible books are in Africa. So it was natural that, when she first visited Fountain of Hope, she asked if she could read to the children. Recognizing the great unmet need in helping those children, her career is now focused on making books and libraries available to the most vulnerable children in Africa.

Most of Jane’s professional career has been involved with libraries and information for international development, particularly in the agricultural sector. She worked in that capacity at the World Bank and the U.S. National Agricultural Library, for USAID, and as a consultant to a number of international organizations. During her seven years living in southern Africa, as well as on numerous other trips to Africa, she taught and spoke to many library groups in Malawi, Zambia and other African countries, and has visited scores of libraries throughout the continent. In 2006, she was awarded honorary lifetime membership by the Zambia Library Association. As a leader in the library profession, her “leadership lessons” were profiled by the 2008 American Library Association’s “Emerging Leaders.”

Jane earned a BA with a major in English literature from the University of Arizona in 1976 and her MLS from the University of Maryland’s College of Library and Information Studies in 1978. The Special Libraries Association awarded her the Dow Jones Factiva Leadership Award at its 2007 annual conference, and she received the Washington, DC SLA Chapter’s Board of Directors Award for 2005-2006. She was honored as the 2008 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year by the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies.