Cradock and its Black suburb of Lingelihle is situated out there in the South African countryside far away from the big, bustling cities of the country. This is the kind of area that BiS has purposely chosen for its engagement in South Africa. There are schools over here and new ones come up all the time. But the schools lack books; there are no school libraries, not even the most rudimentary of collections for classroom use. And this is the typical story for practically the entire countryside where the Black majority of the population resides. But changes are in progress and South Africa is now in the process of replacing the old school curricula with a single, national curriculum called "Curriculum 2005 Project". One of its basic aims is to discontinue the traditional desk-dominated teaching system and embark on a modern educational sytem based on a pupil-centred, investigative work methodology. A curriculum and methodology of this kind needs resources, not least in the form of books and other media. During the Spring of 1997, a special Task Force presented a set of proposals for the establishment of school libraries in South Africa. In their report "A National Policy Framework for School Library Standards", pertinent issues are discussed and appropriate solutions to problems have been suggested. It is in this context and at this stage that the Swedish library community, we believe, can make a contribution.

BiS (Libraries in Society - a Swedish national, non-governmental organisation) and its partner organisation in South Africa, LIWO (Library and Information Workers Organisation), have agreed to cooperate in launching a nation-wide school libraries project under the banner "Library Practice for Young Learners. Developing School Library Resources for Primary and Secondary Schools in Disadvantaged Areas in South Africa". An essential part of the project is to establish an exchange relationship with Sweden. Our partnership with LIWO means that we have expanded beyond our normal boundary of activities and we therefore appreciate every support.The project has financial support from SIDA for the years 1997 and 1998 and for the beginning of 1999.

During the long period of preparation leading to our present involvement in the project, we have frequently posed the question: can we contribute anything to the development of school libraries in South Africa, we who have gone through severe financial cutbacks and who have been so hard pressed for resources? We have been aware too that our record of achievements is not a string of continuous success stories. Notwithstanding this, we feel that we have the imagination, the urge and the will to try out new solutions - an attitude of mind that both our economic crisis and the new methods of work in our schools have inculcated in us. We have enough of successful examples just as we have experiences of failures to enable us to participate in a meaningful and genuine partnership. Besides, involvement in this project will mean that we in Sweden will stand to learn and be inspired by the eagerness which people are showing in the work with the new school system in South Africa.

The goal of the project is to create 18 school library plans for the nine Provinces in the country: nine plans aimed at primary schools and nine plans directed towards secondary schools. What do these school library plans mean? To begin with, just as in the school libraries report prepared by the Department of Education in South Africa, school libraries will mean different things in different circumstances. The real gist of the matter however, is to ascertain how local resources in a particular area can best be marshalled and used to meet existing needs - perhaps a combined public-and school library might be the solution, perhaps IT might be the most relevant factor to consider, or perhaps the establishment of a school library depöt, or a circulation library... In South Africa, many different kinds of educational opportunities are available today: nursery and infant schooling, adult education, voacational trining etc.; all needing library services.

One more goal is to gather and compile information and document experiences connected with the work on the school library plans and make these as widely available as possible in the hope that this would help move the above-mentioned school libraries project to a flying start and thereby contribute to the implementation of the new curriculum.

There is yet another goal: to establish as many and as strong links as possible between Swedish and South African librarians and, in certain special areas, to broaden the contact network to include other institutions as well, like schools, sports organisations etc. How are these goals to be achieved? Our chosen method of approach is not to send books to South Africa, but to generate ideas and translate these into action.

The present framework of action for the project is a follows:

* At the end of September 1997, a delegation from South Africa (comprising the nine School Libraries Directors at the provincial level, together with one representative from the Ministry of Education and the South African Project Director) will visit Sweden for a week during which time members will visit school libraries and meet with librarians, researchers and administrators. The purpose is to galvanise together an informed and motivated group of individualswhose task would be to push the school library plans foward in the poorest areas of the nine provinces.This task would include establishing criteria to be used in the appointment of the 18 librarianswho to work within the framework of the project. This group of librarians will later, in May 1998, spend two intensive weeks in Sweden: the first week will assemble the group as a whole with a common programme; the second week will offer individualised programmes for the delegtes with an opportunity to study one single locality in the company of one or several Swedish librarians.

* Back in South Africa, these delegates will begin the serious work of implementing the school library plans and, by the beginning of 1999, an easy-to-comprehend documet on the development of school libraries will be produced and distributed throughout the nine provinces of the country.

These are the big steps planned for the moment, but how is the project managed? The project is administerd by a Project Director in South Africa together with a Project Group from each of the partner organisations, BiS and LIWO. One of the members of the LIWO Group is Jenni Karlsson who has worked as secretary in the investigation resulting in the report "A National Policy Framework for School Library Standards" and who is the Head of the Education Policy Unit at the University of Natal in Durban. The members of the BiS Project Group include Barbro Bolonassos, Lena Lundgren, Kerstin Rydsjö, Lennart Wettmark and Helen Amborn.

The BiS Group is responsible for reporting to and briefing SIDA and is charged with the task of organising the visits and meetings mentioned above for the South African participants. We are now in the midst of preparing the programme for the September visit and would welcome any support, suggestions and ideas.The big challenge, as far as we are concerned, is the two-week visit in May 1998! We need good showpiece libraries and we need committed librarians and library-interested persons. What’s to be the upshot of all this if not imaginative, local solutions - and shortcuts - to library facilities in the service of a knowledge-thirsty South Africa; and increased contacts between Sweden and South Africa - the South Africa that has for such a long time kindled such strong feelings in Sweden!

Please feel free to contact the Project Groups through the following persons:

Jenni Karlsson e-mail: <KARLSSON@MTB.und-ac.za>

Cathy Stadler e-mail: <computing@icon.co.za>

Maureen Mosselson e-mail: <mosson@iafrica.com>

Lennart Wettmark e-mail: <lennart.wettmark@sag.karlstad.se>

Lena Lundgren e-mail: <lena.lundgren@ssb.stockholm.se>

BiS Aug 1997; transl chl

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