Surviving : not Living: A Study on a Library and its Users in Northern Tanzania

Sammanfattning: This master thesis concerns a library in Eastern Africa and the users of that library. The aim is to describe the situation and try to assess what the users' needs and wants are. It was my belief that different cultures need different libraries. We need to ask ourselves: can we help if we do not understand the needs? There is a chapter on what has been written on libraries in Africa and African literature, including one section devoted to giving a broad background on Tanzania and the Tanzania Library Service, including history and a quick glance at Swahili and Arusha. The chapter on Arusha Regional Library makes use of the statistics from the library regarding the number of visits and the number of members. In the next chapter there is a presentation of the results of a questionnaire grouped around the different areas - literature both written and oral as well as libraries and attitudes toward literature and libraries. Followed by a section on the point of view of the library staff. They express some opinions that are contradictory both to what some of the users think and what the statistics say. In the conclusion, I bring up the fact that there are many library service needs that remain unsatisfied. The financial situation has forced Tanzania Library Service into solutions that are less than ideal. Furthermore, I make some suggestions based on my observations and on the comments made by the respondents of the questionnaire.