Message from a longstanding member Northern Cape MRS MANDA HOUGH LIASA MEMBERSHIP NO 2333 I GREW up in a house full of books and stories. My mom read us a story every night before we went to sleep. When we were old enough to become library members she introduced us to the Kimberley Public Library. I could not wait to go every week to take out my own books. I still have fond memories of the old building and the staircase we used to get to the children’s library on the second floor. Today this building houses the Africana Research Library and I still think with fondness of my first encounter with the library as a toddler each time I visit the Africana Library. When the library moved to a new building, I was allowed to visit the library with my bicycle and now I could go as many times a week as I wanted. I always wanted to take out more books than the three I was allowed on my membership card. I came up with a good plan – or so I thought. I hid the extra books in the adult section on a shelf behind the adult books. I could never understand why the books were gone when I came back in a few days – not knowing that the library staff did shelf reading every day! My grandmother was a librarian in Jeffreys Bay. Each December holiday when we would visit them I would go to the library with her and helped her “work”. Libraries introduced me to people and places I would never have known if I did not have access to a library. In the school library we learned how to handle a book and what not to do while reading like eating, drinking or making donkey ears. Libraries helped me through school and university. When the adults did not know, the library always had an answer. Needless to say, I became a librarian and today I am working in the same libraries that I visited as a child! Today Libraries Matter even more than they did 30 years ago. Libraries fill the gap brought about by the digital divide in today’s society. Besides serving as a treasure cove of information for research and leisure purposes, the library provide access to Information and Communication Technologies to those who does not have the means. It aids in helping people find employment, and students advancing their academic goals by using the ICT and study facilities available. The library is an important corner stone in the community, especially in the Northern Cape with our huge social inequalities. Libraries help build healthy societies and serve as much-needed religious and cultural hubs as well as safe havens for children and adults alike where they can escape their daily difficulties, meet interesting people, grow friendships, tell their stories to the librarians, while at the same time keeping abreast with current affairs. Libraries and librarians are unsung heroes: we play an important role in making our communities a better place. Be proud of your library - #librariesmatter!
Libraries fill the gap brought about by the digital divide in today’s society.
