Cape Town City Libraries' severe budget cuts
The Cape Times (10 March 2010, p 3 - not available electronically) reports that the libraries in the Cape Town will have to close or "downscale" operation from July because the budget has been cut by R4,9 million.
Helderzicht Library in Somerset West has been closed. The mobile library bus service will be cut from three buses to two and no longer stop in Rondebosch East or Sybrand Park. Opening hours of libraries are going to be cut, and programmes like story telling and school visits will have to be reduced. The report goes on to say that even hours of the children's sections in some libraries will be cut.
42 full-time posts have been cut and replaced with 17 part-time post, while other posts advertised have been frozen. This in the week leading up to South African Library Week.
This needs enormous media attention! The football white elephant now consumes even our education and that of our next generation. The same fate has befallen the conservation of our natural resources. I hope we wake up from this bad dream.
By sad panda on 03/30,2010, at 00:39
Add to this, school libraries with very few schools having school libraries. The public libraries are the only alternative and are overwhelmed. Where will the reductions in hours and services leave those children? As for what can be done ... well, for a start, join the Equal Education march for school libraries (on Sunday 21 March) and sign the petition to at least get libraries and librarians into the schools. I must say that I have not seen anything else in the media (either reporting on or letters to the editor) about the cuts.
By I on 03/15,2010, at 11:24
This is devastatingly sad. Public libraries were my education, my inspiration, my fun... a role they continued to play for my spawn.
Where else are refugee and squatter kids to get access to enough, good, books? or to the internet? or to that space, quiet and holy, where their imaginations can leave the constraints of their circumstances and soar to untold possibilities?
Is there nothing that can be done??
By :( on 03/11,2010, at 19:51