This description of the difficulties of school library and community information services in a developing country includes forceful images of a rural indigenous people with little self-known history, and widely separated by a wild and rough terrain and diverging cultures--all of which conspire as obstacles to the spread of library and school services even at the primary school level. Although large in number, primary schools suffer from inefficient teachers of writing and language (especially hampered by the use of a foreign language as a teaching medium), second rate teachers, and lack of educational materials; in addition, the schools as vital centers of community education are totally neglected. To remedy this, it is the desire of the government that these 'community' schools assist children in achieving a deeper awareness of themselves as members of their community, a reality only if: (1) they become more efficient in teaching literacy to children, (2) they provide the means of teaching literacy to adults, and (3) they provide a community service as information resource centers. (Author/RAA)