Kanengoni joins gallery library

At The Gallery
The National Gallery of Zimbabwe strives to promote talent, creativity and contemporary dialogue, through collection of artworks and their exhibition, education, research and engagement towards a broader appreciation of the visual arts and heritage.
An important part of realising this striving is having a library to collect information on art; both local and international hence the amassment of all relevant resources such as books, journals catalogues, transcripts, academic papers, photographs, videos and electronic resources which are key to the National Gallery of Zimbabwe’s goal make up Zimbabwe’s largest reference centre for art and all its subsidiary sectors.

A new bibliosoph has taken over the reigns at the Thomas Meikle Library and her name is Jean Kanengoni.
With an extensive résumé that saw her work for various organisations in Zimbabwe and overseas, Kanengoni has a vision that aligns with the National Gallery of Zimbabwe’s mission and currently the library seeks to empower creativity and ideas through access to information and knowledge.

Kanengoni read Library and Information Science at the Harare Polytechnic and qualified with a diploma.
She then proceeded to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom.

From there she attained a Master’s Degree at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia.
Kanengoni has worked in the book industry extensively from publishing to merchandising and in line with the librarian field she has taken lectureship at Higher and Tertiary institutions such as Zimbabwe Open University and the Harare Polytechnic.

She has worked at the SAPES (Southern African Political Economic Series) Trust in Harare, Business Victoria and Seatini in Australia and the Scripture Union in Harare.

This diverse coalescence of experience in different organizations brings twenty-one years of skill to the Thomas Meikle Library.
Her goal as chief librarian is to bolster the Thomas Meikle Library as the go to point for all Art enthusiasts, academics and practitioners.

Part of the goal entails the digitisation of all books and institutional records in partnership with other departments in the gallery in order to establish a research database of all artworks which will become easily accessible to the public via computing.

The digitisation of the library’s entire catalogue would include international titles and resources and in that manner members of public can access information from any international scholar effortlessly.

Kanengoni is committed to reaching out to schoolchildren in order to expose them to artwork and the literature that makes sense of it in order to familiarise them with the world of art.

Beyond that she intends to support research at scholarly level by initiating the collection of papers and monographs and adding them to the library’s digital database.
Such a move would involve networking with libraries within and outside Zimbabwe and the sourcing of research projects for institutions such as the National Gallery School of Visual Art and Design and universities around Zimbabwe as they are the immediate resource pool for developing an understanding in the contemporary art scene.

In regards to intellectual alliance Kanengoni envisions a responsive tripartite that would put into effect a well endorsed programme which guarantees funding from the corporate world to ensure academic institutions and the gallery collaboratively work towards creating a balanced and informative body of information.

The Thomas Meikle Library recently received a donation of books from the Italian publisher Charta Books.
The books were made out to the National Gallery of Zimbabwe by the former as they had built ties with each other through the Venice Biennale.

Charta Books has published both of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe’s Zimbabwe Pavilion Catalogues and this gave the art book publisher an insight on the talent and appreciation Zimbabwe has in visual art.

The consignment of books donated came up to about a hundred titles with titles covering various genres.
Amongst the books there are titles covering sculpture, architecture, museum studies and administration, photography, theatre art and poetry. The consignment of books is reflective on Art from around the world and the books are particularly gender balanced in their representation on art.

The books are now housed in the Thomas Meikle Library at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare and will also be distributed to the regional galleries in Bulawayo and Mutare as well.