Proceedings of the 9 th International Conference on New Information Technology (NIT '96) November 11-14, 1996, Pretoria, South Africa West Newton, MA: MicroUse Information, 1996: 283-22. INTRODUCING NIT TO AN HISTORICALLY DISADVANTAGED INSTITUTION IN SOUTH AFRICA Kris Swank Thunderbird The American Graduate School Glendale, AZ, USA Susan Lubbe Lesley Heaney Border Technikon East London, South Africa Introducing new information technologies (NIT) into tertiary education in developing countries takes more than plugging a computer into the wall. There is an enormous technology gap between the developed and developing worlds. In the U.S., college students logon at home and electronically send completed assignments to a professors' e- mail box. In rural South Africa, many students live in homes without electricity. In the U.S. students may have library cards before they have their permanent teeth. In South Africa, it is more likely that students will enter a library, for the first time in their lives, during their tertiary education. To close this gap at historically disadvantaged technikons in South Africa, America and South Africa have teamed up. Throughout the 1996 academic year, a team of librarians at Boarder Technikon have been working on several projects to improve the information resources. This paper seeks to give an overview of the economic and cultural situation in the Eastern Cape Province and a brief history of the South African tertiary education system in general and specifically Border Technikon, and to review the progress and set-backs of this cross-cultural team over the past year. A number of challenges will be discussed. 283