Abstract:
Since 2005 at least fifteen community and public
libraries have been deliberately set alight in South
African townships and informal settlements, reportedly
by individuals or groups from the communities which
these libraries were intended to serve. This has given rise
to dismay, horror and outrage among librarians. This article
seeks to situate the deliberate destruction of libraries
in a broader international context before focusing on
the South African context of what are commonly called
“service delivery protests.” An overview is given of some
recent scholarly analyses of violent protests in South African
communities in an attempt to answer four questions:
(1) what were the circumstances in which libraries were set
alight? (2) who did this? (3) were libraries deliberately targeted
or were they simply collateral damage? and (4) if libraries
were deliberately targeted, what motivated this? A
fifth question concerns how the South African library profession
responded to these incidents. Using the burning of
the Ratanda Library on 20 March 2012 as a case study, the
article explores the response of the South African library
profession to the incident. In an analysis of the content of
contributions posted on the discussion list and website of
the Library and Information Association of South Africa
(LIASA), four main groups of themes are identified. These
concern expressions of revulsion, the impact of the incident,
professional action, and underlying societal issues.
The article concludes with some observations on the responses
of the South African library community.
