Understanding Innovation and Policy Transfer: Implications for Libraries and Information Services in Africa

Library development in Africa has involved large-scale processes of innovation and policy transfer, also referred to as policy borrowing or policy learning. A good deal of theory has been developed in various disciplines to study these processes. This has not been applied in library and information services (LIS) to any significant extent, but it can help us to gain a better understanding of why attempts to transfer new ideas fail, how to select the ideas we want to transfer, and how to improve the chances of successful innovation and policy transfer. This paper places policy transfer within the broader framework of the diffusion of innovations before considering what we can learn from the theory of policy transfer and related processes, with emphasis on theory developed in comparative education. An attempt is made to apply these insights to library development in Africa and draw some lessons for African library decision makers. Some of the examples are drawn from the author’s experience in the South African library profession.