The Zulu librarian

by Anna Jackson

Jane Linzmeyer, a librarian in the Social Work Library, cataloguing books at Sinaye Primary School library in the Kwazulu Natal province of South Africa

Cataloging books and facilitating workshops may not seem like a vacation. But Jane Linzmeyer, an academic librarian in the Social Work Library, did just that this summer volunteering for three weeks in South Africa.

In Africa, Linzmeyer organized and cataloged more than 300 books at Sinaye Primary School in the Kwazulu Natal province. She also co-facilitated five workshops to help teachers create classroom libraries in their schools. Linzmeyer traveled with the Inform the World Volunteer Librarian program, a nonprofit organization that promotes literacy and information access in developing countries.

She says the experience has broadened her awareness of social problems and has given her insight into another culture.

As a part of the program, volunteers helped ‘learners’ create books and Linzmeyer says these sessions were very popular because the only supplies required were paper, pencil and scissors. "The Zulus are natural storytellers, but they are not accustomed to writing. We showed them that they can be authors, too, and they were thrilled with that idea."

Group of teachers at Sinaye Primary School. (Second from right is "teacher-librarian", DuDu Mhlanga).

Linzmeyer says the best part of her trip was her personal interaction with the South African people, and in particular the Zulu children and teenagers in the villages and homes where she stayed. But the stark reality of poverty in the rural areas of this developing country was difficult for her to witness.

"An experience like this adds new meaning to the term, ‘resource sharing’ in light of the scarcity of resources for some groups in South Africa," Linzmeyer says. "In the rural areas, a teacher may be appointed ‘teacher-librarian’ without much training and the ‘library’ may be a room with a few books which is locked up most of the time for security reasons," she says. "Because of the limitations of the Bantu system of education under apartheid, black South Africans are at an extreme disadvantage in terms of literacy, education and resources."

Many of the schools in the region Linzmeyer visited have no books for the children to read. Despite a lack of technological resources, she says the people have a wealth of information and knowledge that is waiting to be shared with the rest of the world. Linzmeyer says her experiences with the South African Zulus may be useful this fall to the professor and students of a new international course in the Social Work curriculum. She also brought back a few books published in South Africa that she will add to the library collection on campus.

"My co-volunteer and I had the privilege of working with the Zulu people who hold fast to their culture and traditions in spite of long years of oppression under apartheid," she says. "Spending time with such a strong, resilient and creative people such as the Zulus is inspiring to me in ways I'm not able to put into words."

School "learners" at recess stopped to visit Linzmeyer and her co-volunteer, Stephanie, while they prepared a workshop for the teachers.