With a Computer in a Field - a newspaper article

The media interest in the project Agricultural Libraries by the Jagodina Public Library does not cease.

This time, the daily newspaper Politika published an article With a Computer in a Field with the aim to introduce the situation in rural areas and how farmers benefit from agricultural services at the village libraries.

They write about three AgroLib online marketplace users: Ljiljana Vulic, who sells all her handicraft produce through the Library’s marketplace to customers from other towns in Serbia; Rade Damjanovic, who is an agricultural engineer, and started using the AgroLib services and is now engaged in fruit growing and gives advice to other growers online and Milija Brajkovic, who uses Internet to sell his honey with great success and passes on important information he extracts on the Internet to his fellow beekeepers.

According to the statistical data there are 326 village libraries in Serbia, out of which 132 have computers. Only 18 village libraries have Internet access and it is almost unbelievable that only 12 of them provide Internet access to their users. Majority of rural residents are ICT illiterate and in numerous villages it is impossible to set up Internet.

As for the Jagodina Library, it was very unusual that until the project started in 2010, there used to be no farmers who were the Library beneficiaries. Today, farmers in five villages are regular at the libraries. They either use computers to search for information online, or to read agricultural newspapers, or simply to gather at the libraries.