Slideshow of African Posters Commemorates World AIDS Day

EVANSTON, Ill. --- A slideshow featuring more than two dozen contemporary African AIDS-awareness posters with a soundtrack by a popular African group of choral singers infected with HIV/AIDS will be screened continuously on a giant plasma screen Friday, Dec. 1, in commemoration of World AIDS Day. It also can be viewed through early 2007 online at http://www.library.northwestern.edu/africana/worldaidsday/.

The 29 posters - from a large collection of sometimes shockingly frank (by American standards) anti-AIDS and AIDS education materials that are part of the Herskovits Library of Africana - can be viewed on the plasma screen at Northwestern University Library, 1970 Campus Drive, throughout the day on Friday in the Information Commons area on the first floor. The online show is on view indefinitely.

According to the latest figures from the World Health Organization and United Nations, more than six of every 10 people living with AIDS reside south of the Sahara. “The World AIDS Day slide show was created to spotlight the growing HIV/AIDS crisis in sub-Sahara Africa,” said John Kannenberg, the video's producer and a library assistant in the Herskovits Library. Of an estimated 40 million people in the world living with AIDS, almost 25 million are sub-Sahara Africans.

Posters in Africa -- where many citizens are beyond the reach of television, radio, magazine or newspaper advertising -- play an important role in many aspects of public communication and, in particular, the fight against AIDS.

Northwestern's Herskovits Library contains more materials from and about Africa than any other single location library in the world. It has a long-standing commitment to collecting AIDS-related posters and is in the process of digitizing many of them for online viewing.

For further information about the slide show, the AIDS poster collection or the Herskovits Library, call (847) 491-7684.

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