Building resilient public libraries with Carnegie in

South Africa (1927 – 2012): regularities,

singularities and South African exceptionalism

Mary Nassimbeni, Library and Information Studies Centre,

University of Cape Town

Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY)

Cancelled stamp: 1912

Harper’s Weekly

Letter of gift Cartoon

• CCNY founded 1911: fund of $125 million

• “ Advancement & diffusion of knowledge & understanding”

• Libraries, “a never failing spring in the desert”• 1912, special Br.

Dominion & Colonies fund

Early ad hoc investment in SA

Potchefstroom

1912

Vryheid

1908

Morreesburg

1912

Carnegie in South Africa• President Frederick Keppel and Sec.James Bertram visit SA in 1927• Recommend investing in South Africa• Investigate Poor Whites• Investigate State of the Union’s libraries

Ferguson Pitt Commission 1927

•Matthew Stirling, librarian of Germiston, approached Carnegie with a request to investigate the potential of investing inSouth African libraries •As a result Milton Ferguson a librarian from California, and S A Pitt a librarian from Glasgow Public Library were commissioned

Two separate reports, 1929

Their findings

• 211 public libraries, neither free nor public• Limited reach: 3% of the White population• No library legislation, no library system• Meagre to non-existent service for “Non-

Europeans”• Poor supply of books in the vernacular• Inadequate staffing, inadequate education and

training, no library schools

National Library Conference of 1928

• 80 librarians, government and education officials, academics

• Agreed to establish free public library service• Free services for “Non-Whites” part of

national system, but housed separately• Establishment of a library association

modelled on UK Library Association

Separate facilities

Carnegie Poor White Study, 1928

Poor whites (300 000): “narrow and confused outlook, lacking enterprise, initiative and self-reliance”

Carnegie Poor White Reports: Education• E G Malherbe highlighted

importance of reading and libraries for education

• Reading ability and habits in his sample inadequate

• “Fewer staff, more books. Rather one teacher with a suitable library, than two teachers”

Early Investment in PLs in SA, 1908 - 1923

Public library development: 1920s & 1930s

• In 1934: a sum of $125 000 for national public library service

• Endowment to benefit whites “as a concession to segregated realities of the day”

• Ferguson: provision of services for Non-Europeans “seems to raise great fears in the breast of some Europeans”

PL development contd.

• Grants made for separate library services for “adult natives” “coloured schools”, Lovedale Native Press, “non-European library centres”

• South African Library Association (SALA) • Total of £71 204 for libraries and books ($346

259) following Conference• Between 1908 and 1923: 12 libraries, £27 800

Potchefstroom Vryheid Morreesburg

Second Carnegie Inquiry• Between 1948 & mid 1970s little Carnegie

activity• Consolidation of apartheid in library sector• Expulsion of black librarians from SALA at

1962 National Conference in Bloemfontein, echoes of 1928 Conference

• President Alan Pifer established the Second Carnegie Inquiry into Poverty and Development in Southern Africa

• Fifty years after the first study, black South Africans experienced far worse conditions than the Afrikaners had suffered.

Second Inquiry into Poverty• Groups of academics,

political & social activists across racial lines

• “Failure of First Inquiry”: Pres. Hamburg

• Despite strong efforts manifest in developments as the Carnegie Non-European Library … we find that when the vast majority of those who are poor are black, library facilities are primarily available only to whites”

Reaction of SA LIS

• Silence• Use and development of South African library

and information services, 1988: ahistorical• “Libraries must adapt to social change”• Nascent political awareness: Planning for

Change, as opposed to habitual emphasis on technicism and neutrality

Revitalisation of public libraries, 2002 - 2012

Cape Town Central Khayelitsha

Bessie Head, Pmb Johannesburg

After democratic elections: cuts in PL budgets decline, neglect

2002, CCNY programme instituted

Model public libraries: metros

Regularities, singularities, exceptionalism

• Parallel investigation into museums, 1928• Recommendation to join SALA• Scientific philanthropy: expert input, careful

research• Library Investigation and Second and First

Poverty Inquiries based on careful documentation and facts

• Negative impact and exclusionary effects