"This new electronic edition reproduces the thoroughly revised second edition which contained much new material including two completely new chapters – on information needs and existing responses in African communities, and on ideas and experiments for new information services to the whole community. This substantially altered the emphasis of the book, so that it dealt more directly with information and libraries for the people of Africa. The Quiet Struggle contains not only a programme for a more relevant approach to conventional library service in Africa, but also a more thoroughly worked-out rationale for informal information services to the local community. This is based on new research on communication at village level in Malawi, and investigations into initiatives in information work in Senegal and Zimbabwe." (Back cover)

"This electronic edition of The Quiet Struggle: Information and Libraries for the People of Africa is the text as it appeared in print in 1998, published by Mansell. The copyright was reassigned to the authors by letter dated 6th February 2002. The authors have been made well aware over the years that neither the first or second printed editions of the book circulated as widely in Africa as they had wished and through this electronic edition they hope to rectify that. Although the text that is made freely available to readers here was written in 1997 and published in 1998, the authors believe that it still has value as a baseline approach to the provision of library and information services in less developed countries." (About this edition)