In the Spotlight

World AIDS Day slideshow

Of the 39.5 million people worldwide currently living with HIV/AIDS, 24.7 million live in Africa south of the Sahara, according to recently released WHO and UNAIDS figures.

On World AIDS Day, Friday, December 1, 2006, Northwestern University Library’s Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies hopes to draw attention to the health crisis in Africa and the efforts of African governments and private organizations to address it by presenting an electronic slideshow from its extraordinary African poster collection.

The World AIDS Day slideshow features 29 African AIDS-awareness posters and a choral soundtrack by the TASO AIDS choir. The show will air continuously on a large plasma screen in the main Library’s Information Commons throughout the day Friday, with the soundtrack made headphone-accessible (so as not to disturb studying in the area). It can also be accessed online, with the accompanying soundtrack, at http://www.library.northwestern.edu/africana/worldaidsday/ .

In Africa, where much of the population cannot be reached by Western promotional vehicles such as television, radio, or magazine and newspaper advertising, posters play an important role in many aspects of public communication. The Herskovits Library has a long-standing commitment to collecting these posters, and is currently in the process of digitizing many of them to make them available to a wider audience.