Since 2007, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (Libraries Without Borders) has worked to bring knowledge and information to people in need. They provide access and resources that connect people to books and digital resources, expanding the reach of libraries, training facilitators in post-emergency situations, and addressing the needs of under-resourced communities. From laundromats in Oakland, California, to refugee camps in Bangladesh, they bring tools to reduce inequality of access to information and knowledge.

BSF has worked in 25 languages and over 50 countries around the world, touching the lives of six million people. They’ve curated more than 35,000 items for programming that allow them to address the most important issues of our world today: education, health, employment, citizenship, environment and sustainability, racial injustice, secularism.

They work as a humanitarian non-profit that intervenes in difficult situations but also a social enterprise that expands access to knowledge by training facilitators and developing technologies and programs for distribution. They partner with private and public sector actors to connect people to books and digital resources. Their strength lies in their broad range of interventions that together seek to give everyone the capacity to be free and to make autonomous decisions about their future.

3 PILLARS OF ACTION

TOOLS

to reduce inequality of access to education and information.

RESOURCES

and services to strengthen the capacities of people in vulnerable situations.

FACILITATORS

who make the library space for development and innovation.