ONE AND A HALF years after the Windhoek Public Library in the city centre was closed for renovations, it remains shut to the despair and frustration of the public and library staff.
‘This is a big scandal,’ a library assistant said this week. According to a number of librarians, who preferred to remain unnamed, the revamp and update of the Windhoek Central Library was badly planned and executed. And there appears to be no date set yet for the reopening of the library.
‘We don’t know what is happening,’ a library assistant said yesterday. ‘We are demotivated. Nobody comes and tells us anything.’
A colleague added: ‘We love working here. We want the library to open again. The community should get involved.’
Inside the library building, it is apparent that the only things missing are bookshelves and books.
New air-conditioners were installed last year and the building was repainted, although some paint is already peeling off the walls.
Librarians say they are keen to provide a service to the community, even if is a limited service for the time being. They added that the public should raise their voices, since the library belongs to the community.
‘Now we give no service. They must do something urgently. We want our library open again.’
The library assistants proposed that they be given the go-ahead to run a ‘mini’ library service ‘just for people to get a service and for them to see we exist’.
The librarians are especially concerned with the upcoming exams in Windhoek and say that many students depend on their library for quiet study time.
‘We feel that we can just open a section for the students for now. We have to serve the public like we used to.’
Aside from the lack of shelves, the assistants feel they have sufficient manpower to open and give a service.
‘We have the manpower. We only need the shelves.’
There are also concerns regarding the books stored in stuffy rooms and in boxes.
‘Some books were already old. Now they are standing in boxes, it’s not good for them.’
According to sources, the Minister of Education, Abraham Iyambo, together with a Ministry of Finances official visited the empty building in April this year, but so far, no feedback has been received.
When the library was closed in January last year, promises were made that the library would be reopened by August that year.
No one was available for comment at the Directorate of Library services in the Ministry of Education by the time of going to print.
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