PhDRDV / Institute for Rural Development / Providing access to knowledge and connecting it to the needs of individuals as well as grassroots
community have always been at the centre of the mission and purpose of public libraries.
Numerous studies conducted in various parts of the world have shown that public libraries are the
anchor of the lives of communities where they are established. These studies have revealed that
information needs may not be the same for different age groups and for different genders. For
that reason many countries have been investing in the establishment of community libraries. In
South Africa, a community libraries conditional grant was introduced in 2007 to build capacity for
public libraries through building additional libraries and renovating existing ones so that they
provide information that will satisfy information needs of all community members. However, there
are still concerns about the functionality of public libraries and need to strengthening their capacity
so that they adequately address community information.
This study was conducted on rural community libraries in Mutale located in the Vhembe District
of Limpopo Province, South Africa. The main objective was to develop a model for enhanced
functionality of public libraries for rural community development. The study was conceptualized
around the ecological framework (Asselin and Doiron, 2014). The specific objectives were: to
identify challenges faced by the library in providing services to adults, youth and children: to
establish if information needs of adults, youth and children varied due to age, and to assess the
level of satisfaction of adults, youth and children with the services of the local public library. The
study used an exploratory sequential mixed method design with the qualitative phase preceding
the quantitative phase. The qualitative phase had two phases. In the first, phase fourteen key
informants were purposefully selected and engaged in face-to-face interviews as well as one
focus group. Qualitative data from this phase were analysed using atlas.ti version 8. Results
distilled showed that the library was hampered by centralized library services which were run from
the district level, insufficient funding, inadequate library operating hours and lack of ICT support.
In the second phase, a total of 150 adults, youth and children were purposefully selected and
engaged in face-to-face interviews as well as focus group discussions. An interview guide
complimented by camera, and voice recorder were used to collect data from the respondents.
Atlas ti version 8 was used to analyse the data. The results showed that information needs of the
community were not fully met by provisions in the library. A variety of information resources
expected to satisfy the needs of adults, youth and children respectively include increased number
of computers with internet connection, extended library opening hours including Saturdays ,
stakeholder engagement to be recognized, the extensive marketing of the library for it to be used
by the community and the need to improve the amenities and library infrastructure.
Results obtained in the qualitative phase of the study informed the second quantitative phase .
During this phase, an evaluative survey was conducted with adults, youth and children.
Convenience and snowballing techniques were used to sample 176 respondents. A
questionnaire with a Likert-type ranking scale was used to collect data. The International
Business Machines, Statistical Product and Service Solutions (IBM SPSS) version 24 was used
to analyse the data. Chi Square and Crammer’s V tests were performed on the data.
It was established that more female (59%) than male (41%) respondents used the library. Of the
respondents engaged 26% o were children; 30% were youth and 55% were adults. In terms of
travelling to access the library services 32% of the respondents travels less than two kilometers
while 68% travel more than two kilometers. This indicates that the majority of the users have a
challenge of accessing the library due to distance. The majority of the respondents (70%) did not
use the library frequently, with only 30% being active library users. Significant differences in
accessing library services were observed according to age in terms of “Current books on all
subjects”, “Major reference works such as Encyclopaedias and dictionaries”, “Books on arts and
crafts”, “Audio-visual materials” and “Electronic databases”. No significant differences according
to gender were observed on all aspects on availability of materials except for “Children’s
materials”. Only the perception on availability of “Current books on all subjects” showed a
moderate relationship across age (based on the Cramer’s V value >.3). However, on all the
aspects where the results showed an association by age and gender the relationship was
deemed weak as demonstrated by Cramer’ V values (<.3).
Generally, all the respondents (adults, youth and children) were not satisfied with the ICTs,
availability of information and available services and amenities. Chi-square tests showed no
significant associations between age and perceptions on ICT resources of an ideal library,
available services, available amenities, marketing of library services, availability of materials in
the library and type of information needed to make informed decisions.
These results imply that for the library to provide unhindered services, there must be an enabling
environment for the smooth running of the library. There is a need for government to review the
policy of running the libraries from districts, as this negatively impacts on opening hours,
acquisitions of materials and ICTs support. The library needs to do a periodic survey of the
information needs of the community so that it responds by providing relevant and current
resources. The study proposed a conceptual model that will enhance the functionality of libraries
and to enhance their capacity to offer better services to their users. The proposed model is
anchored on nine broad areas which are strengthening human resources, funding, access and
accessibility, partnerships, infrastructure, ICTs, management, stakeholder consultation and
periodic users’ surveys. Thus, if these interventions are heeded to, there is a higher possibility
that the library will be more functional and better positioned to close the information gap.
The study contributes to the body of knowledge through provision of a conceptual model which
highlights factors that hamper smooth provision of library services, and offers pillars (components
of the model) that can enhance the functionality of public libraries in rural areas. It further
contributes by highlighting those services regard by users to be important for maximal usage of
libraries. This study was unique in that as at the time of completion according to the investigator’s
knowledge no other study on rural public libraries has looked into the functionality of libraries
funded by the conditional grant using a variety of methods, different perspectives through
engaging key informants, factoring in the different age groups and bringing in the gender
perspective in a single study. Use of different computer assisted software packages (Atlas
version 8 and SPSS version 24) over and above the thematic content analysis to analyse the data
was also unique as most other known studies only used thematic content analysis for their
qualitative data.
Based on the findings it was concluded that decentralized services to local municipal level could
reduce many of the challenges that hinder libraries from providing smooth and quality services to
their communities. Improved materials collections to satisfy individual and communal information
needs, user friendly opening hours as well as engaging the community in library decisions could
go a long way in ensuring the library is recognized as a community development hub that fulfills
its mission of keeping the community informed. It was therefore recommended that the policy on
the running of public libraries should be reviewed with the view to decentralize the running of
public libraries to local municipalities,. More still, policy on library funding should be reviewed,
library opening hours should be extended, better trained ICT technicians should be placed in local
libraries, librarians should be appointed on a permanent basis, and a comparative study of all
libraries in Vhembe should be conducted to gauge if the community is deriving any benefits from
the provision of computers and access to the internet through “Mzansi Online” project. / Staff Capacity Development
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:univen/oai:univendspace.univen.ac.za:11602/1279 |
| Date | 15 May 2019 |
| Creators | Matodzi, Tsedzeni Annah |
| Contributors | Francis, J., Mwale, M. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource xvii, 168 leaves, color illustrations, color maps) |
| Rights | University of Venda |
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