Guest editorial
| Date | 13 August 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LM-03-2018-0027 |
| Published date | 13 August 2018 |
| Pages | 346-348 |
| Author | Dennis N. Ocholla |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,HR in libraries,Library strategy,Library promotion |
Guest editorial
Libraries and Librarianship in Africa are slowly growing and their development contains
many paradoxes. While some of the oldest libraries were found in Africa, the development
and growth of most current libraries began after African countries became politically
independent from colonists whose role in the development of present libraries is significant
and still influences library collections, many of which are in non-African Languages such as
English, French, Portuguese, and Arabic.
African libraries, particularly public libraries, were and still are part of what Adolphe
Amadi called “barefoot librarianship”,inhisbookAfrican libraries: Western tradition and
colonial brainwashing published by Scarecrow Press in 1981 and what Kingo Mchombu’s
widely read article “On the librarianshipof poverty”published in LIBRI in 1982 and many such
studies in the 1980s or Paul Sturges and Peter Neil described in their book The Quiet Struggle.
Libraries and Information for Africa and Diana Rosenberg’s“University libraries in Africa: a
review of theircurrent state and futurepotential”in the 1990s or Isaac Aissa’s“Public libraries
in Africa: a report and annotated bibliography”in the last decade. Much of this literature paints
a bleak picture on African libraries and librarianship pointing out marginalisation, poor
infrastructure and services, unsuitable library collections largely in non-African languages,
poor readership and lack of information access and unequal development of libraries.
Recent studies focusing on Africa which I edited –as reported in “Global Library and
Information Science”in 2009 and 2017 edited by Ismail Abdullahi from the Northern
Carolina Central University –reflect on the status, development and challenges of libraries
and librarianship in the world by continents that include Africa. The study notes the status
quo of underdevelopment reported in the last four decades but also represents new
initiatives and developments largely in LIS education, research and academic/university
libraries that are admirable. Some positive country developments can be found in an edited
book by Theo Bothma, Peter Underwood and Patrick Ngulube in 2007 –Libraries for the
Future: Progress and Development of South African Libraries.
In this special LM issue, I represent papers from Public Libraries (3), Academic libraries
(4), LIS education (2), Special Librarianship (1) and LIS Research (1). On LIS research, Bosire
Onyancha from South Africa writes on “Mapping collaboration and impact of library and
information science research in sub-Saharan Africa, from 1995 to 2016”to map and visualise
collaboration patterns and citation impact of the library and information science research in
sub-Saharan Africa in that period. He notes growth in publications and dominance of
international collaboration yielding better citations with South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya at
the helm of productivity in sub-Saharan African countries and recommends the promotion
of research partnership and collaboration.
Public libraries have received insignificant growth in Africa and the problems mentioned
by Isaac Aissa still dominate. The next three articles focus on public libraries. Karla Strand
and Johannes Britz’s article ( from USA) entitled “The evolving role of public libraries in
South Africa in addressing information poverty: a historical context”provides an overview
of the historical development of libraries in South Africa against a backdrop of poverty and
social inequality. The context for the understanding of how the development of libraries
throughout turbulent times of the South African political period is provided and encourages
better understanding of the value and purpose of libraries in combating information poverty
in the country despite better public library development in South Africa when compared to
other African countries.
Library Management
Vol. 39 No. 6/7, 2018
pp. 346-348
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0143-5124
DOI 10.1108/LM-03-2018-0027
346
LM
39,6/7
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