Thursday, October 29, 2009

Transformation in South African Libraries

Another session I attended at the ILA Conference was titled “If It Doesn’t Hurt, It’s not Real Transformation”: Rebuilding South African Library Services in the Aftermath of Apartheid.” The speaker was Peter J. Lor, from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, former director of South Africa’s State Library.

The work to rebuild library service in South Africa was a long process and continues today. It was interesting to hear how the librarians came together to form new library associations and new library services. There were two points he made that I want to share. The first was that to do this work together they had to have inclusiveness, consultation with others, patience, a building trust, and understanding personal chemistry. The second; process is important to the outcome. This means that if you do not spend time having a good process the outcome may be flawed or much less effective.

Wow another post where transformation is talked about.

No comments:

Post a Comment