A Mpesa Foundation Academy form 3 student told us he “was never exposed to the reading world and therefore didn’t develop the culture of reading but the library (resource center) at the Academy made” him “hungry for books’ treasures”. This insatiable demand for books is a challenge that we welcome and meet by staging the supply of books in three phases to satisfy moods, needs and interests. Between phase one and two, we encourage librarians, students and teachers to tell us what books they want but do not have in their library and to express what they like about the new books they do have in their library, so we can find more books like them. This method creates particular value for readers by providing the right books and the ones teachers and students really want.
Essentially, we create a service where our goals are totally aligned with our schools and the librarianship principle. The library assistant at the Mpesa Foundation Academy, Elisabeth Waikwa, puts it this way: ““Every book its reader and every reader his or her book”, that is, every user of our KEY library (resource center) comes to it and finds something that will be of interest to him or her and every item in the resource center is useful for users”.