‘Missing or overdue‘: a librarian’s lament

AS THE nation looked forward to the State of the Nation address, public libraries were looking at the state of their annual accounts.

At this time, librarians reflect on the thousands of items lost due to long-overdue material, as well as lost and damaged library items. Librarians spend hours going through endless lists, hoping to retrieve some of the missing material.

With a number of measures put in place to benefit the public – from an e-mail reminder three days prior to due dates, to enabling library users to renew their items online or telephonically three times in a row, effectively affording readers eight weeks with the books, as well as two amnesty weeks per year.

Yet, libraries are still facing the same old challenge. As a librarian myself, there are days when I am frustrated with 90-day overdue lists provided to contact patrons who have material outstanding for longer than three months.

Why is there so little respect for the library service and what it stands for?

One of the saddest things in my day’s work is to have to tell someone who has travelled far to find an item that it’s missing or long overdue. And the most disheartening thing is the self-assurance of a person adamant that the badly damaged book “was like this when I borrowed it”. Or the ones who would swear “I never borrowed such a book”, and in 80% of the case, they have.

I remember how library books helped me and many of my peers to get through our studies and, to this day, I continue to learn and benefit through libraries.

I salute those who still take pride in their libraries, and who apologise a thousand times for being a day late. The R1 per week per book fine is not to punish our users, but to encourage a sense of responsibility.

I am not saying that our libraries are perfect, but as we look forward to the 2017 National Library Week in March, I hope that we reflect on its slogan “My library, your library” and remember how shared knowledge empowers a nation, how it provides lifelong learning for all the strata in our communities. This is what public libraries stand for, along with connecting people.

And also ask ourselves how are we to fulfil our purpose of building quality collections and resources to provide the public with excellent and effective service if we have to continuously replace resources we have already invested in? How are we to compete with world-class standards?

My plea is that the next time you visit your library, pay it some respect, consider the next person who will need that book you have borrowed, as well as the CDs/DVDs. Consider volunteering: help with programmes, tidy shelves.

And if you haven’t visited a library yet, or in a long time, consider this an invitation – make an outing of it!