MyPE  (the Port Elizabeth Community Web Site) reports: 

The SA Library for the Blind celebrates its 90th anniversary and the bi-centenary of Louis Braille's birthday, with the introduction of the Xhosa version and the Braille version of the libraries name and the unveiling of a commemorative plaque in memory of the founder Josie Wood.

<snip> 

Part of the celebrations also included hosting a Gala Dinner which was attended by various dignitaries including the Chair of the Library Board, Justice Zak Yacoob. The Library's new logo and corporate identify was launched during the dinner. Francois Hendrikz, Director of the South African Library for the Blind, said that while the organisation was extremely proud of its heritage and history over the past 90 years, it also embraced the future and welcomed the new identity and the move into the next phase of its existence.

"We proudly use the latest technology available and our organisation is an eclectic mix of the old with the new. Our new corporate identity is an accurate reflection of this," he said. The SALB is a National Library which provides for the literature and information needs of visually and print-impaired persons throughout South Africa, and increasingly, Sub-Saharan Africa. The Library was founded in 1919 by Miss Wood after a meeting she held with Miss Eleanor Comber, a lady missionary from England. She started off by circulating Braille books using a room in her home as the library.

 

 

From the Premier of the Western Cape's State of the Province address (29 May 2009)  - the priorities for the Department of Cultural Affairs and Sports

 <snip>

The Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport has set out several key priorities to ensure that our amenities are functioning optimally, and serving the public properly. This includes a review of Museum legislation, the extension of rural library services (wheelie wagons), and the improvement of library IT systems, especially increased internet access to facilitate IT skills among young people.

Minister Jenner will also work to encourage the development of sports clubs and school leagues, which will offer our youth the opportunity to get involved in constructive after-school activities. Part of this side of the Department's work will be to implement a 2010 Social Legacy programme to ensure that the benefits of hosting this event will be spread across as many communities as possible.

The Department of the Premier will work together with Minister Jenner's department in coordinating 2010-related projects. If we get 2010 right, it will be our best opportunity since 1994 to dispel Afro-pessimism, and increase investor interest in the sub-continent. This region has already benefited from R12 billion in public sector investment, which has led private sector investment. The lead agent for 2010 in this region is the City of Cape Town, in its capacity as a Host City. The Province will support Cape Town and provincial towns that will be used as possible base camps or supporter bases. We will also work together on public transport for the entire event footprint, as well as safety and security, and the facilitation of economic opportunities.

Spotted in the Mail and Guardian

 The Chimurenga collective has joined the Cape biennale (the title of which for this year is Convergence) to produce a remarkable installation that functions as a journey of discovery through the books in Cape Town Central Library.    

Chimurenga specialises in mystifying anticolonialist themes through avant-garde literature and suggestive, comic-style illustration.

Now the collective has made an intervention in Cape Town library that uses a self-styled system of classification to point readers in the direction of themes and emotions contained in the literature. Perhaps this is a reaction to the standard Dewey Decimal System that may seem a little dry to those intending to stage a revolution in literary content.

Spotted on allAfrica.com

From a tram shed, to a City Power sub-station to a library ...   that's the story of the new Yeoville Library which will open in May.      A challenge for the contractors, there were unforseen structures discovered underground during the demolition process.  

The library opens 16 May, but according to a spokesperson for  Jhb City's Library and Information Services Unit, there are no computers for the library, at present.  

 

 

Story spotted in today's The Times.

A library dedicated to Nelson Mandela is to be set up in the Nelson Mandela Museum in Mthatha.  The museum is housed in the former Transkei's parliament building with three rooms allocated to the library.    Foreign embasses and agencies have been approached to offer material for the collections, and South Africans asked to donate anything with a bearing on Madiba's life. 

 

 

Spotted in the Witness while checking for stories about SA Library Week, looking for coverage of the national launch which took place in Pietermaritzburg :-

• No books have been bought for the Msunduzi Municipal Library since 2004 because books were not budgetted for in the City Budget.   Read more.
  

• Two letters to the editor about school libraries and their importance for schools to have their own libraries.    The first letter challenges the Minister of Education and the KZN MEC of Education to spend a few Saturdays working in the local public library, to see the impact of public libraries.        The second letter is about the library at Asithuthuke Combined School and its lack of a school librarian.
  

• But on the other hand, there is a story about Cosmo Primary School  winning the School LIbrary Excellence Award from the KZN Education Library Information and Technology Services. The teachers who won the award, set up library corners in each classroom.
  

South African Library Week 2009 is featured on Book-SA News. 

 

Minister of Arts and Culture, Dr Pallo Jordan, launched South African Library Week (16 March - 21 March) at the Bessie Head Library in Pietermaritzburg on Saturday 14th March.

South Africa needs to strategically position libraries as partners in education to encourage a reading culture and a nation of critical thinkers.

According to the Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan, libraries are vital in eradicating illiteracy and inculcating a mindset of lifelong learning.

"Let us commit ourselves to using libraries to unlock the minds of our nation; become repositories of our cultural heritage; showcase our literary talent; and become an active role player in bridging the digital divide."
 

Read the rest of the story from BuaNews Online here.   And here is Dr Jordan's speech. 

In the words of Ray Bradbury, the famous science fiction writer, “without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.”   

From For Africa site as well as BuaNews Online: -

 "Education in the Free State will receive another welcome boost when Sony South Africa donates some 8 700 books to the Free State Department of Education (FSDoE) to further stock their mobile libraries, through the intervention by South Africa Primary Education Support Initiative (SAPESI).

On Thursday, 26 February, books collected from Sony group companies in seven countries will be officially handed over to the MEC of the Free State Department of Education at the Windmill Casino and Conference Centre in Bloemfontein.

Sony Corporation, supporting SAPESIs efforts to contribute in overcoming the challenges South Africa’s compulsory education system, took the lead in the campaign. Sony companies in UK English speaking countries, namely Sony UK, Sony Australia, Sony New Zealand, Sony Hong Kong, Sony Singapore and Sony South Africa called upon employees to donate English children’s books."

The rest of the story from For Africa is here, while the new story from BuaNews Online is here. 

 

The University of Pretoria’s Department of Library Services has joined the World Digital Library Project, making it one of the 27 institutions in the world and the only one in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa to belong to this project.

Proposed in 2005 by the Library of Congress in cooperation with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Digital Library project will make available on the Internet significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.

Initially, the University of Pretoria’s Library Services will be contributing and sharing material from its digital collections on rock art and Pretoriana.

Pretoriana refers to any media such as articles, photographs, newspapers, brochures, architectural plans, maps, etc on Pretoria. Please follow the ffg link to view some of the items in the Van der Waal Collection already on UPSpace (https://www.up.ac.za/dspace/handle/2263/94).

Rest of the story here.

 

Spotted on news24.co.za ...  

The speakers of Tsotsitaal, or South African gangsta-rap, are on a mission to get the language taken seriously.

The language will take its place amongst six indigenous languages that will be promoted at the annual Limpopo book fair in Polokwane next week.

Tsotsitaal author and campaigner Robert Pearce (52) will give a presentation of the language on February 24. 

"I have published a few poems already and am going to do a presentation at the Polokwane city library," says the university librarian who also excels in Afrikaans and English.

"I also make music in Tsotsitaal occasionally and enjoy speaking the language with my two brothers and one of my sisters," he adds.

The other five languages to be promoted at the Book Fair are  isiNdebele, Sepedi, Xitsonga, Tshivenda, Setswana, and Afrikaans.

 

 

 

The Rivonia Trial Papers were listed on the UNESCO Memory of World Archives earlier this week, making it the fourth South African collection to be so listed.  

 As Dr Z Pallo Jordan said on the occasion of the listing on Thursday 19th February:-

"A trial of this magnitude generated a lot of documentation in the form of photographs, files, written reports, leaflets, pamphlets, notebooks, dictabelts, sound recordings etc. The mandate of the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa is to collect, preserve and make accessible public and non-public records under its custody. Because of the interest created, at home and abroad, during and after this trial, it has not been possible to have a complete set of the Rivonia Trial papers here at the National Archives.

The records are scattered all over our country. Some are universities; others are in libraries and collections in other parts of the world. During the recent years the National Archives embarked on a drive to locate all these records, with a view to repatriating them to South Africa, or at the very least, obtaining copies of them to be deposited at the National Archives. According to the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa Act No 43 of 1996 (as amended), the Rivonia Trial papers are public records, and therefore have to be preserved at the National Archives of South Africa."

The process of tracing and repatriation has been slow and arduous. During 2000, for example, Mr. Mandela handed the microfilm copies of these papers to my predecessor, the then Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST), Dr Ben Ngubane, for onward transmission to the National Archives of South Africa for preservation. We thank you, Madiba, for that public spirited gesture. On 28th November 2008, the Oppenheimer Family, who had acquired a sizeable collection of the papers from the leader of the prosecution team, Percy Yutar, handed that collection to the National Archives of South Africa. Let me once again thank the Oppenheimer family for that gesture. All these original documents are now preserved at the National Archives of South Africa where they rightly belong."

This is the fourth South African collection listed on the UNESCO Memory of World Archives.  The other three are the DOXA Collection,  the Bleek Collection and the Dutch East India Company (VOC) Collection.

The National Library of South Africa has been tasked by the Department of Arts and Culture to   reprint literary classics in indigenous languages to help preserve the country's heritage.

Launching the Reprint of South African Literary Classics Project on Tuesday, Minister of Arts and Culture, Pallo Jordan said publishing literature in indigenous languages was self-evidently an area with the greatest potential.

Significantly, he said, the project was part of the government-wide campaign to promote the culture of reading and writing in indigenous languages, thereby reducing illiteracy.

Rest of the story here. 

Page 13 of the Budget says 

 "We received a tip from Mr. Xolani Notshe of Port Elizabeth thanking us for allocating money to libraries. He says "libraries are central in community development. Libraries  will assist your  successor to collect more taxes because we would be an educated and skilled nation". I agree entirely.

 

 

South Africa and Mali opened a high-tech library in the Malian desert town of Timbuktu on Saturday, boosting efforts to preserve thousands of ancient manuscripts documenting Africa's academic past.

The launch is part of a South African plan to help Mali to protect up to 150,000 manuscripts, some of which date from the 13th century and document subjects ranging from science and the arts to social and business trends of the day.

South Africa has also been training Malian conservators to protect the texts, which some say will force the West to accept Africa has an intellectual history as old as its own. Others draw comparisons with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Read the rest of the story here from Reuters, and from The Times.