Regional School Library Seminar in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwe Library Association, in conjunction with the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL) – Africa Sub Sahara Region, hosted a Regional School Library Seminar in Bulawayo on 8-9 February 2012.  This event was organized so that school librarians, school library media specialists, teacher librarians, library and information science lecturers, university and polytechnic/college librarians, public librarians, library science students and all those interested in school librarianship could meet and learn from each other, and share ideas and aspirations on all aspects of school librarianship in Zimbabwe, Africa and the world over.
The 2 day seminar was attended by +70 delegates, 3 from South Africa, 3 from Tanzania, 2 from Kenya, 1 from Sweden and the rest were people from the regions in Zimbabwe. The seminar was very well organised.  The organising committee consisted of members of the Zimbabwe Library Association lead by Jerry Mathema,   The Masiyephambili College was a perfect venue for the seminar.

On day one the seminar was attended by 3 officials from the IFLA Africa Section, namely

• Lindi Nhlapo from the University of South Africa in Pretoria, South Africa,
• Victoria Okojie, Registrar, Librarians' Registration Council of Nigeria (LRCN),  Abuja, Nigeria, and
• Margaret Tarpley who is presently working as Liaison Officer and Visiting Librarian at the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, Ogbomoso, Nigeria but is also associated with the Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee,  USA.

We felt honoured to have them in our midst. Victoria Okojie. the chairperson of the IFLA Africa Section, gave a short presentation.

We had an interesting speech by the mayor of Bulawayo who boasted about the number of public libraries which the government is building in townships. The deputy director from the Provincial Education wanted to know if our libraries are child friendly.

The quality of presentations was of high standard. We had a combination of presenters from schools, public libraries, NGOs and universities.

The seminar has come up with resolutions which are being fine tuned by the local organising committee and will be posted on the IASL website.

Prepared by Ms Busi Dlamini
Director IASL (International Association of School Librarianship – Africa Sub-Sahara )
2 March 2012.