adminThe Rhodesia Herald, 19 February 1896
WHEN Earl Grey visited Salisbury, he is understood to have promised a deserving institution, the Salisbury Reading and Recreation Society a donation of books.
The books are now here, but appear to have been “collared” for some public library to be erected in the neighbourhood of Cecil Square.
Cecil Square is a valuable and highly important part of the town, but its neighbourhood is quite unfit for such an edifice as a public library.
A public library is for all classes, and more especially for the classes who take an intelligent interest in good books, but who cannot afford to purchase libraries for themselves.
To set up a library at Causeway is as unfair to the large artisan and other wage-earning classes at the Kopje as it would be unfair to the civil servants to set it up at the south end of Pioneer Street.
The proper place is undoubtedly at some spot midway between the two sides, in the neighbourhood of the Municipal site best of all.
We hope the authorities will take this hint, for an attempt to set up a public library for the particular advantage of Government circles will be very hotly resented — and very properly so — by three-fourth of the bona fide residents of the city.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
Libraries are storehouses of Information. The planning of a public library in the early years of settler colonialism was giving a thumps up to the adage, “Information is power!”
As it turned out, the public library (the Queen Victoria Memorial Library, now Harare City Library), was not constructed in the area around Cecil Square, now Africa Unity Square, but on the outskirts of the Central Business District near Rotten Row.
If they had succeeded in putting up the public library in the Africa Unity Square, it would have seen the area having strategic buildings, useful to Government operations: the Anglican Church, Parliament building, Herald House, Munhumutapa Building, Postal and Telecommunications building, High Court and Supreme Court, Ambassador and Meikles hotels.
It must also be noted that although public libraries are reading houses and meeting places for “all classes” who so desire, it was not until decades later that black people enjoyed their civil liberties to patronise libraries together with white people.
Well known writer Sidney Sheldon said, “libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life.”
Although donations have been instrumental in building up library collections, the downside is that they interfere with issues of national interest. They were too foreign.
Public libraries are now under the ambit of local authorities. However, the state of their collections including their digital materials leave a lot to be desired.
Stocking libraries with donated books also affected the management of the institutions.
It took decades before there was a realisation that libraries needed qualified personnel to order, organise, manage and offer professional service. Some libraries are now manned with holders of PhD or Masters degrees, apart from other professional qualifications.
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