URACCAN promotes attitudes of respect towards cultural diversity, through a bilingual Intercultural model

By. Josselyn Flores

The library of URACCAN, in the Bluefields Campus, stands out for its bilingual intercultural model and has updated bibliographic inventory, which adapts to the needs of the student community of this house of higher education and the cost population, as highlighted by its director, Gladys Wongs.

The Nora Rigby library was founded in 1995, in its early days as "URACCAN Library", but in 2008 it was renamed after an indigenous woman, who dedicated her final decades to documenting and rescuing her native language Rama, Eleonora Rigby, known as Miss Nora.

A wide entrance gives way to a cozy space that has hundreds of books, documents and research, focused on the indigenous, mixed and Afro-descendant peoples of nicaragua's Caribbean Coast.

This intercultural community university ensures the access of ethnic, linguistic and cultural populations to a quality library service. At the same time, it promotes the knowledge of its culture by the rest of the users and encourages the use of the library as a place of encounter and cultural exchange.

Type of services

Since its opening the library, it offers care to young people, children and adults who visit the facilities to make use of some service, according to Wongs, bibliographic loans are provided, user training, interlibrary loans, wireless internet, as well as a media room where users also make use of computers.

As part of the care processes, those in charge of this area give user training talks, which are provided to students for access to virtual libraries. It is worth mentioning that the library has the research of graduates from the different careers of the university.

In this space users interact and exchange knowledge with the aim of promoting participation in cultural activities, and promoting attitudes of respect for cultural diversity, the library encompasses a set of actions aimed at promoting its use, as a space for meeting and integrating the different cultures that coexist both in the venue and external users who come to request attention.