Automation Specialists (2), Librarians Without Borders
Posted June 3, 2015
LWB is recruiting two Automation Specialists to help a Guatemalan library scale to serve more community members in the rural, mountainous town of Chajul, Guatemala. The library has a great problem: a quickly growing patron base! Because its processes are mostly manual, LWB is working with them to automate some of their work in order to free up the librarians for more individual support of community members.
Chajul’s largely indigenous population was a significant target of atrocities — including massacres and scorching of villages — committed during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. The legacy of these atrocities lives on, although a Mayan resurgence, which aims to exalt and give voice to Mayan people locally and nationally, is growing.
Education is critical to this Mayan empowerment, but due to a lack of Spanish / literacy skills in the region generations of Maya Ixil Guatemalans remain unable to advocate for themselves, access key resources, attain good jobs, or support Spanish literacy development in their children.
To help address the community’s education needs, Limitless Horizons Ixil established the Saber sin Límites Community Library in 2010. This is the first and only library to serve the 20,000 people in Chajul. The library provides critical access to reading materials and related literacy educational programs for its 1,600 members, whose numbers continue to grow.
The LWB Automation Specialists will help LHI automate some of its processes so that it can continue to scale and serve even more community members. The four-month project (June to September 2015) will focus on a patron library-card scanning system, and will culminate in the delivery of software plus a barcode scanner that LWB will deploy in its site visit to Chajul at the end of September.
Please download and read the job description here, as well as information about how to apply: Automation Specialists Job Description. Join our team and contribute to this meaningful work!