ZimLA Preamble
Zimbabwe Library Association brings together information professionals from all types and forms of libraries, documentation centres, records centres, archival and information service providers in Zimbabwe. The major thrust of the National Association is to foster cooperation among and between Information Practitioners, Academics and other interest persons in the sector to enhance professional development in state-of-the-art and good practices in the LIS profession and offer staff training programmes to equip professionals with new skills to re-tool and to improve existing skills and knowledge.
The Zimbabwe Library Association (ZimLA) is the professional association of the nation’s librarians. We also play an instrumentatl role of advocating for providing adequate school libraries and librarians for the country. Most schools in Zimbabwe have only a classroom library, i.e. some shelves with supplemental materials. Fewer than 50 schools in the country have proper librarians, and they are mostly private schools. Please join us in working with the Ministry of Education on a policy of . . .
“One school, one library, one librarian”
Some of ZimLA’s activities are:
- promoting October as International School Library Month.
- promoting general reading in schools. ZimLA wants to move away from just textbooks to more reading.
- encouraging librarians in training. In Zimbabwe, there are library training schools at Harare Polytechnic and NUST in Bulawayo.
- running workshops for “teacher-librarians” (usually English teachers drafted to operate a school library) in Binga and Gokwe.
- working with partners like the National Library and Documentation Service (established by the National Library and Documentation Service Act)
- publishing ZIMLA News, now available online.
Current officers:
- National Chairperson: T.G. Bohwa
- Online Newsletter Editor: Hosea Towke
ZIMLA-related pages on Facebook:
Zimbabwe Library Association-ZimLA