Capacity building and training of community librarians

Over 90% of those employed as librarians in the Eastern Cape are not qualified for the job. The 10% of the librarians considered qualified for the job work in libraries based in the major urban areas of the province. Most rural-based community libraries in the Eastern Cape Province are run by librarians who do not have any formal training in Librarianship. Those who serve as community librarians are found in both community and school libraries. In the school libraries, any teacher may be deployed to serve as a teacher librarian. There are very few school teachers, if any, who have any formal training in Librarianship.

It is proposed that the community librarians get basic training in the following areas:

Setting up of a community/school library; management of collection development; basic organization of information and knowledge; Records management; How to access the Internet and other electronic sources of information; Circulations management; The reference process; Library automation project management; and Assessment of community information needs Training in these basic areas may serve as an initial stage of capacity building and training of community librarians in the Nkonkobe Municipality.