Research Articles (Library and Information Science)

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Browsing by Author "Hart, Geneviev"

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    Dual use school community libraries: expedient compromise or imaginative solution?
    (University of Alberta Libraries) Hart, Geneviev
    The paper reports on a research project in a group of six dual use school community libraries in a rural region of South Africa1. The six dual use libraries were established with donor funding in 2001 as part of a larger project of their province�s public library service. In 2009, the donor no longer funds the libraries and they operate under the provincial public library authorities. The case study, conducted in April 2009, investigates the value of dual or shared use libraries in the context of drastic shortages of both school and public libraries and the calls in government circles for the sharing of resources. In the South African situation where millions are out of reach of LIS, the sharing of resources among schools and their local communities certainly is an attractive option. But Haycock warns that the mention of dual use in library circles �not only inflames passion but also seems to release all reason� (2006: 489). The fear, apparently, is that the temptation to cut costs might outweigh needs on the ground. An editorial in the School Library Journal Online in 2000, in response to government endorsement of �joint-use� in California, quotes the Californian School Library Association�s warning that shared school and public libraries are �a politician�s dream solution, because it doesn�t take any thought, and you�re not actually talking to public and school librarians� (Glick, 2000).
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    Public Libraries Stepping into the Gap?: A Study of School Learners' Use of Libraries in a Disadvantaged Community in Cape Town
    (University of Alberta Libraries, 2021) Hart, Geneviev
    According to public library staff none of the Vista schools has a functioning library or a librarian on its staff. In itslack of school libraries Vista is no different from other parts of South Africa. Less than a third of South African schoolshave any sort of library (Department of Education, 1999). Yet South Africa's new curriculum's shift from rote-learningand examinations towards constructivist resource-based approaches expects schools to engage in independent projectand portfolio work.Given the demands of the new curriculum and given the shortage of school libraries, in the past few years therehave been suggestions that South Africa's fairly well-developed public library system might step into the gap and play amore explicitly educational role. At the same time, in public library circles throughout Africa, there have beensuggestions that we need a different model of public librarianship from that in the developed world (Sturges & Neill,1998; Issak, 2000). In the developing world, where school library services are inadequate and where the targetpopulation of libraries is largely youth, the argument is that providing for formal education might well be a primaryfunction of public library services. And indeed there is evidence that South African libraries are moving in thiseducational direction. The annual reports of the large provincial public library governance structures show that they arespending a bigger slice of their budget on educational materials. And at most gatherings of public librarians in SouthAfrica there are calls for increased funds to cope with the pressures of increased school use (Hendrikz, 1998; Leach,1998).