Suburban
In yet another gesture of their endless efforts to restore Greendale to its hey days of being one of the most affluent suburbs in the capital city, residents are working on reviving the council owned library in the suburb.
Ivan Zhakata Suburban Reporter
This comes barely a month after the residents formed a committee to refurbish and restore the Greendale Swimming Pool for the benefit of residents and their children as well as schools in the neighbourhood, which could use the pool for swimming lessons, training and competitions.
The residents have since formed an online platform where they are sharing ideas on how best they can revive the library.
The resuscitation is being spearheaded by Ms Audrey Mhlanga, a local resident who saw the need to revive the library, which is in dire need of a variety of reading material and transformation through computerisation to keep in tandem with developments in information communication technologies and the new opportunities they present in keeping and compiling information.
Other residents have already pledged to donate books to add to the existing ones for the benefit of the residents and the surrounding communities.
“We are all bringing differing skill sets to this initiative and this is what will ensure the success of the project.
Let us have the views of members on what should be our starting point.
We first of all formulate a framework (terms of reference) within which the group will operate with the (City of Harare) Librarian there as our partner.
“We make a physical visit. We engage the librarian to get an appreciation of the management of the facility, the resources available, the services and programmes on offer and the resources required to enhance services,” she said.
Ms Mhlanga is working on a coordinating a residents’ meeting to formulate a plan of action for the resuscitation of the library.
“In preparation for that meeting, we have arranged a briefing with Rita, the Librarian for this coming Friday (today) at 12 noon.
“The discussion and recommendations from this briefing will form the basis of the action plan,” she said.
The librarian Rita Tabvuma said the inside and outside appearance of the library still looks spacious.
“The painting was done by Mr Johnson, a community member, from his own pocket and we thank him for all what he has done for the library.
“The book collection is good though most of the books are novels and we need books that cover the new syllabi introduced in schools and computers in order to move with the technology,” she said.
