PUBLIC-LIBRARIES DEVELOPMENT RECONSIDERED - THE CASE OF EGYPT

This paper advances a new interpretation of the development and curren t decline of public libraries in Egypt based on the study of internati onal influences which helped to shape national discourses about develo pment and provided the context for policy making and resource allocati on in Egypt. After 1945 UNESCO encouraged fundamental education and th e development of public libraries as operational tools of ''education for development''. Public libraries witnessed remarkable growth, but t hen, in the late 1960s, the dominant international discourse about dev elopment shifted under the influence of dependency theory to emphasize the need for developing countries to develop from within. Information for development became a self-evident requirement, but the new priori ty displaced public libraries in favor of specialized information syst ems for decision-makers. Traditionally, public library decline is attr ibuted to local factors and issues of scarcity. In the case of Egypt, however, factors of scarcity are better interpreted as symptoms than a s underlying causes of decline. This paper maintains that the current state of decline of public libraries in Egypt is primarily a consequen ce of public policy choices precipitated by a shift in international a s well as national development priorities, not of factors inherent in the country's political, social and cultural fabric.