Gates Foundation Awards $1 Million
to Colombia’s BibloRed
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation presented its third annual Access to Learning Award August 20 to BibloRed of Bogotá, Colombia, during the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
An integrated network of public libraries, BibloRed over the last four years has built three libraries and upgraded 16 local libraries. The $1-million award is designed to boost an outstanding library organization outside the United States that provides feeless public access to information in innovative ways. The network was selected from 130 applications from 65 countries.
In Glasgow to accept the award at the historic Mitchell Library, Margarita Peña, secretary of education for the Bogotá district, called BibloRed an “agent of change” and said the award “will help us expand our efforts and create new opportunities that will improve the lives of many Colombians in the quest for a more equal society.”
“We hope that this remarkable project to improve public access to information in Colombia will serve as a model for other countries,” said Richard Akeroyd, director of international library initiatives for the foundation, which has given the international award to organizations in Finland, Guatemala, and Argentina, and is currently supporting other library initiatives in Canada, Mexico, and Chile.
Posted August 26, 2002.
|
