Off to IFLA Conference: 19-23 August 2007, Durban, South Africa (part 7)

Three other colleagues and I made a trip down to the Durban City Public Library. It's located at the City Hall -- a building that's 140 years old if I remember my facts correctly. The building itself houses the Natural History museum and the Art museum.

The public library itself occupies one floor.

Collection in English, Afrikaans, and Zulu (South Africa has 9? 11 indegineous languages; Zulu was the predoniment predominant tribe in Durban).



Their front desk, with Internet terminals at the side. Users have to book up to one-day in advanced, and limited to only one hour.


They had a collection specifically for Mills and Boons novels.


Here's their Afrikaan's Collection (i.e. fiction works written in Afrikaans)


They used the DDC Classification System for Nonfiction works. Interestingly, they had a Four-letter Call Number system for Fiction (NLB libraries used the Three-letter Cutter system). I asked why it was four letters and was told that it's easier to locate items with four letters than three. Like in this picture, where CHIN and CHIP would show up as CHI under the Cutter system.


Their Adult Fiction section.


I believe this was their circulation desk in this part of the library.


Their music collection, with CDs and DVDs.


A book display.


The Children reading area (this was just one part of it):


When asked what would he consider as a major issue in running the library, the librarian said space management was constantly on their agenda. What was interesting was that they had something called "Dusty Books Weeding" held twice a year.

In library terminology, "weeding" was to remove "unwanted" books off the shelf -- usually outdated, less popular, and tattered ones. Their term "dusty books" was quite apt, i.e. books that had collected dust because they have not been read.

He asked if public libraries in Singapore was busy. I said most of our public libraries get roughly around 2,000 visitors a day and up to 5,000 visitors on weekends. He said he also served about the same number. That's quite a high usage for them.

This exit said: "Thank you for coming. Bring a friend or two next time".


And here's the Zulu translation.


[Reference: Part 6]