The Dewey Decimal System Is Not Kind To Africa

I worked at The School For Arabic Studies in Kano, Nigeria, for a number of years.  The school was like a Muslim seminary, turning out religion teachers.  However, Nigerian law said that you could not teach unless you were proficient in English, principles of education, and mathematics.

Mathematics – that is why I was on the staff of The School For Arabic Studies.

I volunteered to help out in the library, which had books in English and in Arabic.  Many of our staff members had graduated from al-Azhar University in Cairo, and they told me that our school had the finest collection of Arabic literature in West Africa.

I helped the librarian with the books in English.  I quickly discovered that the Dewey Decimal System is not kind to Africa.  American literature gets a whole range of Dewey Decimal numbers:  going from 810 all the way up to 819.  Nigerian literature, however, gets a little slice of the one Dewey Decimal number that all of Africa has to share: 896.

I was a little grumbly as I helped process the new books in English.

When not processing books, I wandered through the library stacks, where I noticed books that were irrelevant to the students at the school.  I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw The Yachting Handbook on a shelf.

How could The Yachting Handbook ever be relevant?  In order to sail a yacht, you needed a body of water.  Kano is a-hop-skip-and-a-jump away from the Sahara Desert.  Kano has no lakes.  The Kano River appears on maps, but it has water in it for three months a year during the rainy season (see photo of the river below).

So, somebody must have donated this book, and the school library took it because "an irrelevant book in English is better than no book at all".

I discovered an obscure storeroom in a corner of the school campus.  I gathered all the irrelevant books and stashed them there. 

As I stashed them, I wondered who brought the book about yachts to Kano --- probably a yacht enthusiast from Britain coming to work in Kano for a couple of years.  What a surprise when that person found a landscape of sand and camels instead of a landscape of sand and beaches.

When I moved back to the United States, I got some disturbing news.  The library at The School For Arabic Studies had caught on fire one night.

When the students heard about the fire, they flocked to the school, with one goal in mind – they wanted to save the finest collection of Arabic books in West Africa.   The Fire Brigade kept them at bay, and the books all turned to ashes.

Then the school had to rebuild its collection both in Arabic and in English. 

I had a nightmare:  someone stumbles upon that obscure storeroom in the corner of the campus.  That person would see books in English, and think “an irrelevant book in English is better than no book at all”.

In my nightmare, The Yachting Handbook winds up back on a shelf in the library of The School For Arabic Studies in Kano, Nigeria --- just a-hop-skip-and-a-jump from the Sahara Desert.

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Here is a 5-minute video about Kano's history, architecture, and government.  The soundtrack begins 18 seconds into the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_dMOYjmSS0

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com