Other

Although mobile libraries are seen as useful way to bridge literacy divides, there has not been a comprehensive review of mobile libraries in different countries and contexts. This systematic review offers an overview of how mobile libraries have been implemented in urban/rural and low-income/lower-middle-income/upper-middle-income/high-income contexts, reasons for their implementation, factors contributing to the sustainability of mobile libraries and method used to evaluate their effectiveness. The review showed different modes of implementation in different contexts, with increasing access to literacy resources and fostering of social cohesion being two key factors for mobile library implementation. Sustainability of mobile libraries is dependent upon the combined efforts of the government, no-governmental organizations, grassroots and businesses/organizations. Finally, there were limited evaluation studies of the effectiveness of mobile libraries, suggesting the need to develop more systematic evaluation frameworks for evaluating mobile library effectiveness.