|
|
Background
Open access to information and knowledge is vital to any open society. Libraries can and should be a starting point for access to information for all its citizens. After years of apartheid and isolation, it is now even more critical in South Africa where the role of libraries and librarianship is being redefined. In February 2000, Marianna Tax Choldin (Director: Mortenson Center for International Library Programs at the University of Illinois) and Susan Schnuer (Assistant Director: Mortenson Center) travelled to South Africa on a fact-finding trip to look at the possibility of a professional development project for librarians in the country. Prof. Heather Edwards (then chairperson of the Gauteng and Environs Library Consortium, GAELIC) served as the Mellon Foundation contact person and helped to organise visits to 16 libraries in Gauteng and the Free State.
Discussions of services, especially in rural and historically disadvantaged areas, highlighted two critical needs i.e.
- Leadership training - the development of a cadre of new potential leaders and middle managers; and well trained library managers
- Continuing education for librarians at all types of libraries: academic, national, public and school.
It was agreed that programmes to meet these needs would be located within LIASA, the Library and Information Association of South Africa, a professional association that is able to serve the needs of librarians in the country, in partnership with the Mortenson Center.
In December 2000, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation approved a grant of $250000 to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for use over three years in support of a training programme for South African librarians now known as the South African Library Leadership Project.
|
|
