A cloth banner, about eight feet wide and four feet high, attached to the wrought iron grillwork fence of the National Library at Church and Main streets reads:
The National Library in collaboration with the University of Guyana
and other special libraries celebrates Library Week 2017 April 23-28
“Facing the Future Information Literacy in a Changing Technological landscape”
The last three words of the theme “changing technological landscape” suggests a change in the function of the library in the future. Libraries have been around for about 5,000 years and were always viewed as the source of information for their communities and for advancing knowledge. Can the institution of the library survive as technology advances?
The National Library, formerly known as the Carnegie Free Library and the Public Free library, opened its doors in September, 1909. Its construction having been initiated by a seven thousand pound donation in 1907 from the Scottish-American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, as part of a programme to expand the library system in the West Indies in the early twentieth century.
Today, it is the main hub with five branches at North Ruimveldt, Bagotville, New Amsterdam, Corriverton and Linden and twenty-one centres. In addition, there is a bookmobile that provides books to schools (upon request) that presently only serve schools on the East Bank Demerara on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The National Library is open to the general public from Monday to Saturday and has approximately 500,000 books available for use by the general public. In addition to books, there is reference material and an extensive collection of local newspapers, wonderfully bound and dating back to 1972. Some of the newspaper volumes are in fact in better condition than the equivalent counterpart at the National Archives. Unfortunately, there are not kept under controlled temperature conditions, and hence their inevitable decline has commenced.
The National Library has 12,786 registered adult members of whom approximately 4,000 are active, and the juvenile section has about 5,000 on its register with less than 250 making use of the facilities on a regular basis. The lines of high school children on the stairs ascending to the upper level to use the reference section of three and four years ago are non-existent today. The numbers in attendance for the Saturday morning Storytime at 10:00 am are shrinking, but the toy library still enjoys regular traffic of the younger age group on the same day.
The decline in the readership at the National Library is a reflection on the state of the falling literacy rate in the nation. The most worrying statistic comes from the National Grade Four Assessments, where less than 50% of the participants achieved a 50% mark in literacy and numeracy in the last examination. As the Ministry of Education continues to tackle this quagmire through the introduction of the remedial teaching programme SuccessMaker into more primary schools, the role of the parents in assisting and encouraging the children to develop their ability to read cannot be overlooked.
Will the institution of the library survive in the future and will it play an active role? Or, will it just be a white elephant building with a musty smell and full of old pieces of paper with a staff of aging custodians? Perhaps not.
In October 2015, Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) Provost Martin Schmidt asked Chris Bourg, the Director of Libraries to lead a task force on the Future of Libraries, charged with defining “how the MIT libraries ought to evolve to best advance the creation, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge.”
In October, 2016, the Task Force released a preliminary report. The following excerpt is taken from the Executive Summary. “ There are tremendous opportunities to improve the ability of scholars and the public alike to interact with each other and with information through new models of publishing; new mechanisms of collecting, storing, cataloging and disseminating information; and new modes of discovery and use.
“In the full report, we describe a bold new vision for the library as an open global platform rooted in our shared values and mission…Our vision emphasizes the need for libraries to embrace: an expansive definition of the communities they serve and the relationships and partnerships they encompass; a commitment to radically enhancing discovery, access and use of information; a responsibility for leadership in the long-term stewardship and sustainability of the scholarly record; and a new initiative to convene interdisciplinary research and development in information science and scholarly communication.”
MIT founded in 1861 and considered to be among the leading tertiary institutions in the USA has recognized the value of its libraries and is acting on their futures. We should take notice and follow suit.
The National Library is run by a committee with subventions from the Mayor and City Council and the government. This century institution now serving its fourth generation is absolutely priceless and deserves all the support required to keep it functioning at the highest possible level.
We can start by introducing our children to the joys of reading, enrolling them at the National Library and taking them there on a weekly basis.
