48 000 articles by women digitised in Peru

Along with other electronic library resources, 17 member organisations have received the newspaper article database Warmi (“Woman” in the Indian language Quechua) on CD-ROM. The network Red de Información de la Mujer (RIM) stretches from Puno by Lake Titicaca in the south to Cusco near Macchu Picchu in the mountainous area in the centre of the country and all the way to Iquitos in the Amazonas jungle near the border to Bolivia and Brazil. Kvinnefronten - The Women’s Front of Norway - has financed this project.

Earlier this month leaders from all the organisations were gathered in Lima at a seminar on the evaluation of this project which has recently been carried out. Agnete Strøm, responsible for international affairs in Kvinnefronten, participated from Norway. KILDEN was invited to a summer-hot Lima to present the history, experiences and plans for woman’s documentation work in Norway.

The network RIM consists of the information departments of Peruvian women’s organisations. It was established through the initiative of CENDOC-MUJER in 1998. Their goal is to decentralise information about women’s and gender matters that was only to be found in Lima up to this point. Peru is a country characterised by poverty, national discord and strong centralisation after decades of terrorism and authoritarian governments. As an example we find 500 librarians in Peru, and only 4 of them work out in the provinces. In RIM women’s organisations throughout the country are receiving training in librarian- and documentation work. In this way the knowledge is being decentralised.

The library work in RIM is being done from a feminist perspective. This means that the publications are being analysed and registered with an eye on women’s and gender issues. In this way the organisations can use the information to increase the possibilities for women’s liberation around the country. With the aid of the library resources they receive through the network RIM-members can spread information from the whole of Peru to their own region.

The demand for information about gender issues is large out in the regions, and there are several user groups: researchers, students, teachers, school children and men and women working in different types of NGOs.

On assignment for Kvinnefronten the project has newly been evaluated by Chilean Virginia Quevedo. She has lengthy experience with women’s projects and is very enthusiastic about the use of information and documentation as feminist tools. She makes daily radio programs on gender-related topics that are spread to 35 different radio channels throughout Chile.

Quevedo characterised the women’s documentation network as an original project that inspires the woman’s movement in all of Latin America. The evaluation showed that the documentation centres themselves think that they have become more professional through RIM. They have gotten better registration means and systems, more librarian knowledge, more material, more users and thereby a greater spreading of the information they have. The organisations also think that the network has contributed to a strengthening of women’s position since the distribution of information causes higher consciousness about gender matters.

Quevedo concluded her evaluation by saying that RIM is a successful project and she recommended its continuation. She also had a number of suggestions about how the network could be maintained and strengthened. Among other things the leaders of the organisations were encouraged to participate more in RIM work than they had been doing. Quevedo also suggested that the member organisations should profit more on each other’s competence and in this way become more independent of CENDOC in Lima.

This article was first published on KILDEN's web site Jan. 25, 2002