2. THE CONTEXT OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES IN SOUTH AFRICA

The future of South Africa's national libraries cannot be discussed in isolation. The national libraries are components of a national system for the provision of library and information services. Therefore two sets of questions arise concerning the place of the national libraries in this system:

• How would significant changes in the national libraries affect the system as a whole?
• The national system as such is changing. What are the implications of such change for the national libraries?

To facilitate informed discussion on questions of this order, this section provides some background on the library and information services system in South Africa and on the factors influencing it. Two main groups of factors can be distinguished:

• Social, cultural, economic, political, legal and administrative factors. They are to some extent specific to South Africa and are dealt with first, under the heading of non-technological factors. In this context it is essential to relate libraries and information services to national development. Therefore a paragraph follows outlining their contribution to the Growth and Development Strategy, and in view of the particular responsibilities of the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, a paragraph has been added on the role of South Africa's libraries and information services in supporting science, technology and innovation.
• Technological factors (pertaining especially to modern information technology). These factors influence the library and information environment world-wide.

This section concludes with some evaluative comments on the development of library and information services in South Africa.

2.1 Non-technological factors

Non-technological factors include:

• Demographic features (e.g. rapid population growth, urbanisation, a youthful population).
• Education levels (e.g. literacy, drop-out and pass rates, disparities between groups).
• Cultural factors (e.g. cultural diversity and multiple official languages).
• Economic circumstances (e.g. GDP, growth or lack thereof, unemployment, poverty).
• Constitution and government (e.g. respective powers of central, provincial and municipal governments, mechanisms for the coordination of the library and information services function).
• Legal framework (e.g. legislation concerning intellectual property, freedom of information, legal deposit).
• Policies in respect of education, culture, science and technology, telecommunications, mass media, etc.

All of these, and more, influence the country's library and information services. In some cases the connections are clear. For example the high population growth rate and the predominantly youthful population have implications for the facilities, stocks and services of school and community libraries. Certain laws and policies clearly have an effect on libraries of all types. The impact of other factors may not be so easy to discern. It is not possible to deal with these factors individually in this report. What is more useful in this context is to outline the actual and potential contribution of libraries and related information agencies to national development.

2.2 Contribution of library and information services to the Growth and Development Strategy

The Draft report of the Interministerial Working Group on the Library and Information Services (LIS) function (national level) identifies the mission of library and information services in South Africa as being to support and stimulate the socio-economic, educational, cultural, scientific and information development of all communities in the country by providing access to literature and information for all, and to raise the levels of information awareness and information literacy of all our people (Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, 1996a). However, libraries do not enjoy a high priority when it comes to the allocation of funds. This may be because the returns on investment in library and information services are not sufficiently visible to decision-makers. For this reason a brief analysis is presented here on how libraries and information services generally contribute to each of the six "pillars" of the Government's Growth and Development Strategy. The list is selective.

2.2.1 Investing in people as the productive and creative core of the economy

The stated aim of developing an information society implies that South Africa needs a highly skilled, productive, creative and competitive workforce. Information literacy is a requirement for such a workforce. Specifically:

• Libraries in educational institutions are essential resources for learner-centred, resource-based learning, as distinct from textbook-based rote learning.
• Public and community libraries serve as key resources for pre-school education, literacy work and adult education.
• The above categories of libraries, along with many others, embody and promote the values of a culture of learning, information use, and information literacy.

2.2.2 Creating employment on a large scale while building a powerful, internationally competitive South African and southern African economy

In the information age, information is the resource which gives the competitive edge. Specifically:

• Research libraries, the national libraries and special libraries collect, organise and provide access to information for research and development in science, technology, engineering, the life sciences and agriculture.
• The above-mentioned libraries make available social, economic and business intelligence to government, commercial firms (including small and medium enterprises), trade unions and other participants in the economy.
• Over 700 libraries in eight countries participate in the State Library's Southern African scheme of information resource sharing through interlending. This makes South Africa's information resources available to libraries in other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries and vice versa.

2.2.3 Using increased investment in the household and economic infrastructure, in particular the information infrastructure, to facilitate growth and improve the quality of life of the poor

Libraries are an essential part of the information infrastructure:

• Research, national and academic libraries provide access to a wealth of development related information.
• Public and community libraries provide access to information which empowers community leaders to make better community development decisions.
• In many countries the public or community library is regarded as the key agency that can provide less affluent citizens with affordable access to the Internet and can link them with the wealth of networked information. This can also work in South Africa.
• A public or community library is an essential community facility which enhances the quality of life of community members.

2.2.4 A national crime prevention and security strategy to protect the livelihood of our people, secure the wealth of the country and promote investment

Libraries primarily help to combat crime by improving the quality of life of communities and individuals:

• Community and public libraries offer stimulating activities, media and reading matter that help to keep young people off the streets.
• Community and public libraries offer cultural and recreational programmes that make communities better places to live in.
• Community and public libraries support ABET, offering community members opportunities to improve their skills and their employability, thus expanding the alternatives to criminal activity.
• Law libraries are an essential facility for the efficient and fair administration of justice.

2.2.5 Transforming government into an efficient and responsive instrument of delivery and empowerment, able to serve all South Africans while directing government resources primarily to meet the needs of the poor majority

Information is the life-blood of participative democracy and transparent administration:

• Government department libraries provide the information needed by public servants to function efficiently.
• National libraries provide information backup to the government department libraries and make available official publications of foreign governments and international organisations.
• Public, community and academic libraries provide access to publications of the South African government, making possible well-informed participation by civil society in decision-making and evaluation of the government's actions and performance.
• The system of legal deposit, to be enhanced by the proposed official publications depositories, ensures that the public can gain access to government information.
• Thanks to systems of information resource sharing and library cooperation, the book-stock held by all participating libraries constitutes a national resource accessible to all. This ensures that expenditure on the country's libraries is utilised optimally.

2.2.6 Using a system of welfare "safety nets" to draw the poorest and most vulnerable groups progressively into the mainstream of the economy and society

In many countries of the world, public and community libraries are an important component of the social "safety net". They serve as community centres for:

• Upgrading literacy and other basic skills.
• Making available literature suitable for neo-literates and literature in languages spoken in the community.
• Providing survival information (e.g. on social services and entitlements).
• Providing information on community resources and projects.
• Providing information on employment opportunities and opportunities for small business entrepreneurs.
• Providing access to networked information, including the Internet.

The above points are intended to illustrate the role of libraries and information agencies generally in the South African socio-economic context. In view of the recent publication by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology of the White Paper on Science and Technology (Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology 1996), some more specific comments on the role of libraries in supporting science, technology and innovation are in order here.

2.3 Role of libraries in science, technology and innovation

The emphasis in the White Paper on Science and Technology is on an innovation strategy as distinct from a Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Strategy. The innovation strategy implies that the knowledge created through investment in SET should be put to work to generate wealth and bring about "an improved quality of life for all members of society" (p.12-13). Information is a key resource for science and technology and for the national system of innovation (NSI). This is implied by the following passage in the White Paper:

"The ability to maximise the use of information is now considered to be the single most important factor in deciding the competitiveness of countries as well as their ability to empower their citizens through enhanced access to information." (p.5)

As major components in the organisation and diffusion of SET knowledge, libraries and related information agencies need to be taken into account in a national policy concerned with innovation. The White paper makes the following positive statement on the role of libraries:

"Libraries play an important role in the NSI in two ways. Technical libraries are an essential resource for research workers and technologists... General libraries can play an important role in adult education in general and in the public understanding of science in particular." (p.51-52)

This should be expanded to say that libraries have an essential role to play by:

• the provision of information as the raw material for SET research;
• ensuring that the knowledge produced by the SET system is organised for retrieval and dissemination to the productive and service sectors (e.g. agriculture, manufacturing, health and social services and commerce) to enable sectors to produce enhanced and more competitive outputs; and
• disseminating information to community structures and individuals, to empower them to enhance the quality of everyday life.

Libraries and information services should be recognised by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology as full partners in SET research and as an essential component in the NSI.

2.4 Technological factors

World-wide there is great interest in developments in information technology. Expectations of the coming of an information society have not passed South Africa by. In a section concerned with "promoting an information society" the White Paper on Science and Technology states that:

• South Africa needs to develop its own vision of the information society and should not just adopt that of the developed countries.
• The benefits of the information revolution must reach down to every level of society.
• The potential of advanced information technology (IT) must be harnessed in the service of SA's people to support education, the provision of household services, and social development (p.9-10).

How will information technology and the information society impact on South Africa's libraries? Unfortunately, high expectations are accompanied by some over-simplifications and misconceptions. For example it has been suggested that since scientific and technical literature is now widely available on the Internet, it is no longer necessary for South African libraries to spend large amounts of money purchasing such materials in conventional print formats.

Unfortunately, despite the global information economy, serious economic and legal barriers remain, and these provide very significant constraints in respect of the professional and technical information sources that are of the greatest potential use for developing countries. It is no coincidence that most of the digitisation and "global digital library" projects currently under way in the public sector are concerned with historical materials and other public domain materials which are not subject to copyright. Although IT creates the potential for a virtual electronic library, the new technology gives producers and publishers of information products much greater control over the digital materials they market. These publishers are tending (a) to apply copyright aggressively, in the process intimidating libraries and educational institutions into abandoning established practices of fair dealing; and (b) to turn to contract law (e.g. licensing agreements) as means of controlling use of their products. If these trends are not checked resource sharing will be severely inhibited. Access to information will become more expensive and more difficult for the information poor: the most disadvantaged groups in developed countries, and the developing countries as a group.

Currently there is much discussion on the development of the information society in South Africa. In particular many projects and ideas for disseminating information to grass-roots communities are being discussed in various forums, where it has been suggested that:

• The general public can be served through electronic networks, thus largely obviating the need for conventional public libraries.
• IT in the form of electronic kiosks, one-stop electronic information services, etc. provides a quick fix for information provision to disadvantaged communities currently lacking a public or community library.

In some of the discussions of sophisticated information technology, there is more emphasis on the cables and channels than on the information content that is to flow through them. The unfortunate impression is created that the solutions on offer are in search of problems which have not yet been defined. It is alarming to find that there is little awareness of the contribution that libraries can play in disseminating information to grassroots communities. South Africa already has a significant library infrastructure, comprising among others over 1500 public and community libraries and several thousand more school libraries or resource centres. With a relatively modest investment in upgrading and expansion, the existing library networks can provide a ready-made platform for multi-disciplinary and multi-purpose community information services.

Our libraries have a major role to play in preparing the population of South Africa for the Information Society. In particular, public and community libraries should be put to work in fostering information literacy. Of interest in this connection is the report Finland towards the Information Society - a national strategy, completed at the end of 1994 by Finland's Ministry of Finance. It states that a national information society policy is needed to cope with three major challenges: (1) the external challenge of the open global economy, (2) an internal challenge of societal and economic renewal, and (3) pressures for change emanating from the new information technologies themselves. Two of the priority recommendations are the following:

• Ensure that all have the opportunity and basic skills to use the services provided by the information society.
• Make national information resources and public documents easily accessible to all citizens through public information networks by specifying a uniform delivery channel and by providing appropriate resources to implement it. (Finland's way to the information society, 1996).

The Finnish strategy places the various media, schools and libraries in a central position:

By the year 2000 all of Finland's schools and public libraries shall [sic] be connected to information networks. The goal of the library system is to serve as an access point for all citizens and also to promote network literacy and life-long learning. (Lounasvuori & Vattulainen, 1996:180)

The challenges South Africa faces are not identical to those identified in Finland, but they are analogous. It would be short-sighted to neglect the lesson we can learn from the Finnish model.

2.5 The development of library and information services in South Africa

Library and information services in South Africa are characterised by inequitable access. Excellent services are delivered to a small percentage of the population through a sophisticated infrastructure, while the majority of the population enjoys at best a rudimentary service. An overview of the state of library and information services in South Africa is given in the working document prepared for the report of the Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology's Arts and Culture Task Group (ACTAG) (Lor 1995) and an updated and expanded version forms Annexure A to the Draft report of the Interministerial Working Group...(Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology 1996a). No attempt will be made to summarise these descriptions here. However, attention is drawn to the need for transformation to ensure that all communities will have equal access to information and that optimal use is made of available resources. The inequitable distribution and the diversity of library and information services in South Africa imply an urgent need for synergism. The provision of such services should therefore be guided by a set of common values:

1. Equitable and efficient public access to information is a fundamental right of all South Africans.
2. Free access to basic information, including government-produced information, is fundamental to a democratic society.
3. Access to information is essential to support life-long learning and reskilling of the South African people, who should be empowered through information literacy to effectively utilise information for development.
4. Library and information services are user-driven and generally function in support of the mission of their parent institutions.
5. The holdings of the nation's libraries and resource centres collectively constitute a national resource.
6. A flexible information infrastructure makes full use of the rapidly developing information technology.
7. The love and appreciation of reading is a precious attribute that enriches people's lives and is therefore actively promoted by library services to develop life-long reading habits (Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology 1996a).

Considerable change, even radical transformation, is needed in many areas of South African librarianship and information work for libraries and related information agencies to realise their full potential as development agencies. Nevertheless our library and information services sector is quite well developed. In parts it is very sophisticated. Elsewhere, the basic infrastructure is already largely in place. In planning for the future of the national library in South Africa it is not necessary for us to reinvent the wheel.