Reading for Learning or Reading for Fun

I passed by Highlands Branch Library today. What I noticed was so many children around, outside, walking past, passing by and the library was empty. When I asked Roseanne how many child members the Branch had, she said fifteen. Even if they all paid their $5 membership fee each quarter (yes, only $5 to take out 2 books at a time, as many times as you like) then the income to help maintain the children's section is a grand total of $300 per year. Reading for fun is just not on peoples agenda...do we only read to learn, never for fun?

On a more positive note, the book at Highlands are in really quite good condition. And there are such a lot of them. The new reference books have arrived as well, some young readers dictionaries, science books and other useful read for those in the 'homework club'.

The homework club is what Friday afternoons at the library were. Here the children got to finish their homework on the small tables and chairs, then read from the shelves before deciding which books to tae out over the weekend. They would walk home in groups or wait for parents to pick them up after work. How sad that parents do not see the library as a place for their children. But when you ask them, I bet the parents remember the libraries of their youth fondly.

inside Bulawayo City Library

Bulawayo City Library

Over, coffee and chat at the end of the day today my friend Deborah told me of her days as a librarian in Bulawayo. In the 80s and 90s they had very active libraries, with a storyteller who regularly kept a room full of children silently enthralled, and this is still happening today. Amazing.

The only way to return these libraries to their former glory is to use them. Let us learn from the Bulawayo experience. When reading is fun it also becomes learning.