Travels with a Kombi

Abstract

WHEN ZAMBIA became independent, in 1963, neither education nor libraries impinged on the lives of the large majority of people; there were a few municipal libraries, and rural areas were served by Zambia Library Service, then only two years old. Since then the service has expanded enormously, so that there are now almost 600 library centres. Some of these are operated by rural councils or ‘bomas’ (comparable to town halls), but many are operated on a voluntary basis, by school teachers or even by private individuals. Some serve only the establishment which runs them, whether they be cooperative training centres or prisons; many, however, extend facilities to the nearby villages, where the proportion of literate people is rarely very high. There is, however, a great demand for books among those who can read, because, despite the great expansion in secondary schools since independence, education is still inadequate, with less than a tenth of those who leave primary school finding a place in secondary school. Many of these try to further their education (mainly to improve their employment opportunities) by private study or correspondence courses. Such is the demand that one prison librarian wrote asking for more books because too many outsiders were coming in to borrow those they had; (to do this they had to pass two or three guarded gates and sign the visitor's book stating their reason for entering the prison).

Citation

BROWN, E.M. (1971), "Travels with a Kombi", New Library World, Vol. 73 No. 6, pp. 161-164. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb038054