Taking books home

The lending of books by a library is one of its most critical services. As nice as a library space can be, as helpful or knowledgable as the employees are or as modern as its facilities can become whether a book is paper or electronic we want to take it home. ( Below: Our beautiful new computer centre getting rewired for the super speedy broadband connection)

Why do we bring books home? Loads of reasons; we need time to read, we want to read at leisure, we want to read and have a cup of coffee, we want to share the book, talk about it to others, read it out loud, fill an empty evening with words, prove a point, win an argument, maybe read it twice or thrice. We need to take them home.

Harare City Library is a lending library. You could argue that as a city library its business is urban. The people who use the library live and work in and around Harare. There are a lot of people in Harare (over a million for sure). 

Hang on a minute. Let's pause. Harare is not just a city, it is the CAPITAL CITY, the political, economic and social hub of the country (others would argue perhaps on this but it would be one of those arguments that would need you to bring some books home perhaps, take a blood pressure tablet or two). So as a capital city, it serves more than its residents, it is essentially the nations city and the activities inside this city reach out across the country ( if not it should!). 

So when we talk about bringing books home from Harare City Library, it gets complicated. Home for the vast majority of Zimbabweans and Hararians is rural, not everyone in the city was born there. Rural - urban linkages are the veins and arteries of the nation, it's lymphatic system - food, money, help moves back and forth. I believe that when we break this link bad things happen - we lose touch, we grow too far apart, inequality deepens, we get lost. 

It is not feasible, or even desirable for Harare City Library to lend hard copy books to the nation. Good lord, no! We have a hard time engaging and servicing those Hararians that do use the library. 

But there are a few things that we can do, must do, to really deserve the Harare in our name. We must reach out where we can. We must reach out with books and skills, and we must reach out with technology. 

The first we are doing, in a small way, with our old books (weeded stock) and our human capital (staff outreach). Take the recent Mhondoro visit, old books were given, staff talked about libraries and reading and committee members did an HIV awareness session using materials from my organisation,  SAfAIDS that we had left over from the ZIBF. It is good to see some links between all these library associations. Harare City Library is ideally placed as a hub. (Below: evening reflections in the library windows) 

On Friday this week I took two boxes of old books to the annual prize giving and award ceremony at Sungwi Primary School deep in Makonde District for use by the children, the teachers and the parents. There is no library there. At all. In any of the primary or secondary schools in the area. The heads of nearby schools came along, each received a few books and some SAfAIDS IEC. What was just a token through my husband being invited as guest speaker to the school where his sisters' children go and where his mother lived for sometime, was a big deal to those who received them. It felt more than good to do this, it felt right. (Below: storing the books away)

This far away rural school has an ambition, for the parents to buy a laptop. If they do achieve this, imagine the world of books they could access, or information they could receive from Harare Ciry Library as an institutional member - eresources, training opportunities, skills building and more. Imagine the children's faces if a bus trip to Harare included a library visit with a story telling event built in and an ICT or social media awareness session to boot...

Maybe we are spreading ourselves too thin with this dream, but I would rather we dream big and try to level the playing field a little more. Anyway, here are some pictures of a rural school trying to pick itself up and get the community re-engaged. Hope is vital, and it requires us to act. 

THANK YOU FOR THE 5000 HITS :D

Despite my looooooooog absence you have not stopped reading my posts- how awesome is that!

Thank you! It is already well over 5000, don't stop! Keep sharing and talking. Harare City Library needs you ALL.

Now, I have not been doing nothing...so much has happened for the library. The roof is fixed, the space is upgraded, the computer center is live and online.

You really must check out our Facebook page- there are pictures and updates of all the changes, events and more. I have been an Editor on that page this year (now Admin) and we moved from 200 likes to over 800 likes (yipee). Please like us on Facebook, bloggers :D

https://www.facebook.com/Harare.City.Library 

We have residual building funds we need to spend before December (or lose the balance). We have a local consultant librarian in place from August to December (just 5 months) to get the systems up an running- book stock, KOHA, procedural manuals and more. Fingers crossed on that one. Its a big uphill.

We still have to buy new books (not enough but gee, modern books, awesome) and the publicity drive is hotting up! We are also gearing up to receive some books from Doris Lessing's personal library- like WOW! We need to make sure systems are in place before they arrive.

In addition, I ran the ZImbabwe International Book Fair Children's Reading Tent for the third time in a row this year- what fun. My next post will be all about that one.

And very soon, we are hosting Zimbabwe Fashion Week- now, tell me we are not moving with the times, our old, hopeless library is feeling hopeful once again. All from a small group of library member volunteers.

What we need now is more members to pay their $20 membership and use the library and pay their subscription fee each quarter. All librarys need some core funding (it's nation building man!) and so public/private/philanthropic funders who believe in the power of a library to transform a nation, nurture our young people and empower everyone to create their own opportunities are invited to help us.

Are YOU that person?

Teens in the Tent

What struck me this year is how many teenagers are interested in what we are doing at the tent and the library in general. We generally target the younger group, but it is the 14 to 18 year old that are asking us to engage them. 

And rightly so, they are intelligent, fascinating and interesting. Today, one young lady, Chipo,  bowled me over with a poem from the heart. The energy and idas from the youth needs harnessed. I promise that next year in the tent there will be a better balance of activities for the younger and older youth.
How exciting.
Here are some more pictures from today:
Pamela Chituri of the dynamic Paruware Trust reading and exploring with the wee one reading and doing puzzles.

Charmaine Mujeri (poet, actress, budding writer, manager of the afro pop group Mafriq,  a member of Women Film Makers of Zimbabwe and Project Developer of the Let Them Trust) drawing out the talent from the teens.

Committee members Memory and TG getting involved and supporting the whole outreach.

Library staff Rossa, Levinia and Phiona taking care of the information stand. 

Friday afternoon at the ZIBF

Hearts were racing, the clock was ticking, small dust devils rush past......its was 2.45pm and there was NOONE in the children's reading tent.

OH MY GOSH - there was Deborah, Maria (the swedish ambassadors wife), then the Swedish Ambasador and I twiddling our thumbs...

Of course, its the middle of the school term..not the usual end of term when families are free to visit in the afternoons. Most of the school goers were being bussed back to school or pick-up points. We had no idea if there were any young people left to hear our tales of Sweden and Scotland.

But FEAR NOT, good people, for the lighties did decend upon us. After a little marketeering around the stands, we rounded up a bunch of suitable candidates..and the storytelling began.

Here are some pictures from the afternoon. SUCH FUN!

Who's in charge of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair?

Its ZIBF time again and I got soooo excited because that means the childrens reading tent --oooooooh!

So I started jumping around, got some banners made for story telling, some book marks for new members, flyers and pens for anyone who joins at the ZIBF AND found some lovely people to come and read. I LOVE volunteers.

I worked with Takwana at the library to put together a fun filled programme. 

Then I turned up today with the banners, some crayons and paper and stuff to get the tent going and it was like the set of a western movie just before the stand off...desolate!


Ever optimistic I will press on. 

But I have to say this, no shout it.....THE ZIBF IS AN EVENT!


It is not a book, 
or a poem 
or an academic tome. 

An event is run by marketeers. Let's get the important and the interesting right here when appointing organisers. I know it is a voluntary post (so little is our nations value on books), but gee whizz, give a PR person the post and then their own livelihood is at stake if they get it wrong...

Food for thought ZIBF. 

Renovations almost complete

We had our August monthly committee meeting at the main library again after several months of other venues. Very noisy but so nice to see changes. There is a space for computers where there was none, the walls are painted, clean and bright (even if the architects did ignore the branding colour palette on the existing logo!!), the atrium has a new low maintenance lease of life and the flooring is a modern rubber tile. The toilets have been fixed and upgraded, disability access included. All good.

Some pics to share. 

 

For anyone with a good idea

If you have ever had a good idea run away with you a bit- then you will know a little if what the library project feels like

The Nature of Ambition, by Grant Snider | DailyGood

Surprise!

It has been  a while.

I have a new job, and its winter and I have not felt like blogging at all.

But I think I am ready to start again. Besides, things are happening again at the library, rennovation is progressing (next post).

In the meantime, being back in an organisation after 12 years of freelancing, this article struck a cord...intellectual competition (especially by email) kinda does your head in a bit....

Enjoy the link

What Is It to Be Intellectually Humble?, by Robert Roberts

No talking dogs says Petina Gappah

Having attended an event not too long ago where Petina Gappah and Alexander Fuller got together to discuss their writing, well actually for Petina to ask Alexander about her latest book, I was a little tentative about tonights BookCafe Bookclub.  We were discussing Petina's short story collection, An Elegy for Easterly, with Petina herself.

Oooh.


I didn't much enjoy the last event, it felt very staged and I felt very managed and distant in the audience.  Had I projected my disappointments onto Petina herself? But then these are/were two very different events. 

Petina appeared relaxed and happy, a person amongst people, in this small crowd of 20 readers. She seemed to be nursing an ailment of sorts and asked the waiter for a 'hot, hot' glass of water with a whisky and some sugar on the side. Two ginormous spoons of sugar into a small amount of the water and whisky. It is that time of year I guess with the colder months drawing in.

But I digress.

I had only managed to read one short story from the book, In The Heart of the
Golden Triangle, a story about moving up, perhaps a little too quickly, into Harare's wealthier suburbs. A rather harsh but not unbelievable narrative of a set, because they come in three's - Leaticia, Tendai, Bertha - of unhappy women married to wealthy bankers. I can't remember why I read this one. but a strong social comment, something Petina has not been shy of in many of her articles, essays and stories.

Tonights discussion revealed just how broadly read and appreciated Petina's writing is. Our deck of readers had shuffled into them a German couple as well as a Swedish visitor and a few 'groupies' thrown in who came just to see Petina.

The short story, The Annexe Shuffle, resonated with one of our readers, who testified to the reality Petina brought to the story which was based on a lived experience of her own (having loved and lost a subsequent drinking binge saw her sober up whilst in the Annexe and then have to sit out her detention). These little gems sprung up all night. Another story, The Diplomat, was built from an actual experience by a very new and naive Zambian Diplomat Petina had known who was duped by Nigerian fraudsters - you must have had one of those emails.

The story, My cousin-sister Rambanai, also struck a common cord with the group, family members leaving Zimbabwe, coming back, going away again, shades of grey, lost accents, half truths and bold face lies. Then there is the  Mupandawana Dancing champion, a 'What if....' story crafted from a Herald court story about a man dancing himself to death in a year peaking and troughing financially and politically.

And, the very last story, Midnight at the Hotel California, a tale of strange bedfellows and a short history of wheeler dealing in Zimbabwe.

Part of Petina's success is her writing style. She writes mostly in the first person, drawing you close and keeping it real. She deals in realist fiction, telling us "You will never find talking dogs in my stories - even though I am very fond of dogs". She decries the use of a glossary to explain the Shona she uses or the mixed in Shon-glish. She uses a lot. African languages should not be 'exoticised' she insists, nobody routinely puts a glossary for French or German words used in English novels (two other languages she also reads fluently in).


I watch Petina signing books at the end, on the plastic chair in her rolled-up wide legged jeans, a ringmasters coat on with pink glittery swirls on the sleeves and an everyday felt scarf in a slightly different shade of rosy purple. She looked lovely.

She told us she wants to write the particular in a way that is universal; we say yes she does.

Look out for Petina curating the Literacy Programme at HIFA next year- international and local writers- woowoo!

Also, the launch of a short film based on her story 'Something Nice from London' at the National Gallery in July, and of course her debut novel 'Book of Memory' to be published in the UK April 2014 (just in time to discuss it at HIFA).

I cannot think of a better way to meet and interact with authors than through this book club approach.

We need to re-make a “Place” for our Harare City “Public” Library

A Public Library can be (and in many cases are) powerful spaces for exchange, creation, and development.

At Harare City Library we are focusing in 2013 on renovation and repair. 

So,how does the look and feel affect how the library is used?

The library as brick and mortar is quite often the object of affection. 

People talk about libraries as beautiful and many are: marble-laden breezeways, Corinthian columns, dark-wooden bookcases housing centuries of knowledge. Our own lovely library has an amazing history. A book by one Peter Jackson persists on the shelf of my friend Jacquie Borland. I took a picture of the book cover and two fascinating pictures of what our library used to be before it was knocked down to make way for the new, sometime in the 1960's. Fascinating, arn't they. And quite the awesome structures! Imagine , knocking this down for concrete? 

C'est la vie. 

Beautiful, yes. But are they places to take a class on financial management, to meet with colleagues, or to apply for government services? You certainly don’t see many computers.

Let’s think about creating (or rethinking) the space of the modern library. Which changes would you make to our own public library’s space? Fewer walls? More breakout space? More study space? Mobile services? I have visited the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) website, which is a non-profit that provides planning, design, educational, and organizational services that aim to help “people create and sustain public spaces that build stronger communities.” They say- 

• There is a relationship between the panning, design and management of a public library and community engagement.  No point in just fawning over the opulence of the world’s most iconic libraries, our library in Harare is indeed an award winner but it needs also to be a space that facilitates a diverse range of activities. Or what’s the point??? The only way that this can really happen effectively, is with input from the community. Engagement begets engagement. GET INVOLVED!
• Local government and communities must work together to create durable, yet flexible, community spaces. Oh this is so our bug bear! New or revamped library structures are not enough to tackle a city’s most pressing issues.  Our City Fathers must actually put some money where their mouths are (or maybe divert a little from the petrol tanks attached to their large V6 pothole dodging vehicles). At least for running costs, surely. LEADERSHIP BY EXAMPLE IS EVERYTHING!

The real beauty of a library rests in how the community continually reinvents the space.

Why reinvent the wheel, when some clued up specialists at ‘Beyond Access’ have already said it! This blog is adapted from a recent Beyond Access article: beyondaccess.net/blog/2013/04/19/making-place-for-public-libraries/