ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014
TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Building resilient public libraries with Carnegie in
South Africa (1927 – 2012): regularities,
singularities and South African exceptionalism
Mary Nassimbeni, Library and Information Studies Centre,
University of Cape Town
![Page 2: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY)
Cancelled stamp: 1912
Harper’s Weekly
Letter of gift Cartoon
• CCNY founded 1911: fund of $125 million
• “ Advancement & diffusion of knowledge & understanding”
• Libraries, “a never failing spring in the desert”• 1912, special Br.
Dominion & Colonies fund
![Page 3: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Early ad hoc investment in SA
Potchefstroom
1912
Vryheid
1908
Morreesburg
1912
![Page 4: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Carnegie in South Africa• President Frederick Keppel and Sec.James Bertram visit SA in 1927• Recommend investing in South Africa• Investigate Poor Whites• Investigate State of the Union’s libraries
![Page 5: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Ferguson Pitt Commission 1927
•Matthew Stirling, librarian of Germiston, approached Carnegie with a request to investigate the potential of investing inSouth African libraries •As a result Milton Ferguson a librarian from California, and S A Pitt a librarian from Glasgow Public Library were commissioned
![Page 6: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Two separate reports, 1929
![Page 7: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Their findings
• 211 public libraries, neither free nor public• Limited reach: 3% of the White population• No library legislation, no library system• Meagre to non-existent service for “Non-
Europeans”• Poor supply of books in the vernacular• Inadequate staffing, inadequate education and
training, no library schools
![Page 8: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
National Library Conference of 1928
• 80 librarians, government and education officials, academics
• Agreed to establish free public library service• Free services for “Non-Whites” part of
national system, but housed separately• Establishment of a library association
modelled on UK Library Association
![Page 9: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Separate facilities
![Page 10: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Carnegie Poor White Study, 1928
Poor whites (300 000): “narrow and confused outlook, lacking enterprise, initiative and self-reliance”
![Page 11: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Carnegie Poor White Reports: Education• E G Malherbe highlighted
importance of reading and libraries for education
• Reading ability and habits in his sample inadequate
• “Fewer staff, more books. Rather one teacher with a suitable library, than two teachers”
![Page 12: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Early Investment in PLs in SA, 1908 - 1923
![Page 13: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Public library development: 1920s & 1930s
• In 1934: a sum of $125 000 for national public library service
• Endowment to benefit whites “as a concession to segregated realities of the day”
• Ferguson: provision of services for Non-Europeans “seems to raise great fears in the breast of some Europeans”
![Page 14: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
PL development contd.
• Grants made for separate library services for “adult natives” “coloured schools”, Lovedale Native Press, “non-European library centres”
• South African Library Association (SALA) • Total of £71 204 for libraries and books ($346
259) following Conference• Between 1908 and 1923: 12 libraries, £27 800
Potchefstroom Vryheid Morreesburg
![Page 15: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Second Carnegie Inquiry• Between 1948 & mid 1970s little Carnegie
activity• Consolidation of apartheid in library sector• Expulsion of black librarians from SALA at
1962 National Conference in Bloemfontein, echoes of 1928 Conference
• President Alan Pifer established the Second Carnegie Inquiry into Poverty and Development in Southern Africa
• Fifty years after the first study, black South Africans experienced far worse conditions than the Afrikaners had suffered.
![Page 16: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Second Inquiry into Poverty• Groups of academics,
political & social activists across racial lines
• “Failure of First Inquiry”: Pres. Hamburg
• Despite strong efforts manifest in developments as the Carnegie Non-European Library … we find that when the vast majority of those who are poor are black, library facilities are primarily available only to whites”
![Page 17: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Reaction of SA LIS
• Silence• Use and development of South African library
and information services, 1988: ahistorical• “Libraries must adapt to social change”• Nascent political awareness: Planning for
Change, as opposed to habitual emphasis on technicism and neutrality
![Page 18: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Revitalisation of public libraries, 2002 - 2012
Cape Town Central Khayelitsha
Bessie Head, Pmb Johannesburg
After democratic elections: cuts in PL budgets decline, neglect
2002, CCNY programme instituted
Model public libraries: metros
![Page 19: Ifla carnegie for history 17 july 2014](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062406/55bfdb1abb61ebdd728b4602/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
Regularities, singularities, exceptionalism
• Parallel investigation into museums, 1928• Recommendation to join SALA• Scientific philanthropy: expert input, careful
research• Library Investigation and Second and First
Poverty Inquiries based on careful documentation and facts
• Negative impact and exclusionary effects