My presentation at the 40th IFLA Annual Conference in Lyon, August 2014. The title is "Building resilient public libraries with Carnegie (1927 – 2012); regularities, singularities and South African exceptionalism. “

1. 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

2. 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

3. Early ad hoc investment in SA
1912
Potchefstroom
1908
Vryheid
1912
Morreesburg

4. 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

5. Ferguson Pitt Commission 1927
• Matthew Stirling, librarian of Germiston,
approached Carnegie with a request to
investigate the potential of investing in
South African libraries
• As a result Milton Ferguson a librarian
from California, and S A Pitt a librarian from
Glasgow Public Library were commissioned

6. Two separate reports, 1929

7. 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

8. 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

9. Separate facilities

10. Carnegie Poor White Study, 1928
Poor whites
(300 000):
“narrow and
confused
outlook,
lacking
enterprise,
initiative and
self-reliance”

11. 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”

12. Early Investment in PLs in SA, 1908 -
1923

13. 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”

14. 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

15. 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.

16. 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”

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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