Cuban Library Development. $24,000.

Theological education in Cuba is tremendously handicapped by the lack of availability or adequate library resources. We have concluded that the only hope forward would be to appoint someone part time who speaks Spanish, is a professional librarian, understands the politics both of Cuba and the Cuban churches, and who can graciously but firmly advise schools on how to develop an evangelical theological library for this country. And we found her: Mariel Voth, the head librarian of Bethel Seminary in San Diego. She has already done some excellent contract work for us in Latin America and has indicated that she would be available to work with us again.

Our proposal: that this library would be housed not in one location, but shared between four seminaries – two in Havana (Baptist and Methodist), one in Santiago (Baptist) and one in Santa Clara (Pinos Nuevos – interdenominational). This would be a three-five year project that would involve two visits annually from Mariel Voth to meet with administrators and librarians of these four seminaries and help them develop a five year plan that would coordinate their collection development, provide on site training for the librarians and work with outside agencies to creatively find ways to build the collections of these libraries and, finally, advise these schools on computer software to support their library development.

The grant of $24,000 would care for the first year of this project and support travel and accommodation expenses ($3200), a modest honorarium ($2000) for the two visits of four days each, and initial grants for each of the four schools towards their collections. Note: we will manage these grants from our office – finding ways to cover the costs of the books and the shipping, by whatever means we can to get the books into Cuba.