Minister Anroux Marais' speech at National Library Week launch

Western Cape Minister of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Anroux Marais

National Library Week

18 March 2019

Good morning, goeiemôre, molweni nonke

Today, we join the Theewaterskloof Municipality in celebrating the 2019 South African Library Week which officially kicks off today and will run until 24 March 2019.

The 2019 theme, “Collaborate at your library”, is of personal interest as it takes libraries into the heart of the community and strives to awaken a sense of ownership and active responsibility in each community member. Often we do not realise the important role libraries play in the enrichment of our communities and I would like all present here today to use this week as a platform to raise this important awareness.

Caitlin Moran once said, “A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind, hospitals of the soul, theme parks of the imagination. On a cold rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead”. In the current national climate in which we find ourselves, it has become increasingly more challenging to feel less like a consumer and more of a citizen. Libraries hold the essential power to change this way of thinking to in turn spark the action needed to better each of our realities as citizens proudly South African. 

Opvoeding, welsyn en ekonomiese geleenthede is alles faktore wat ’n bydrae lewer tot die bevordering van ons strategiese doelwitte, naamlik die vermindering van armoede en om aan mense die geleentheid te bied om lewens te lei wat waarde toevoeg. Biblioteke ondersteun gemeenskappe wat betref hul verkenning en uitdaging van hindernisse, waardes en gedrag deur aan hulle toegang tot inligting te bied. Hierdie proses hou verband met en bevorder maatskaplike integrasie. Nog belangriker is die feit dat biblioteke gemeenskappe betrek by sake van maatskaplike belang en die maatskaplike insluiting van almal aanmoedig en terselfdertyd ’n gevoel van identiteit en verborgenheid vestig – alles dinge wat in vandag se samelewing van kardinale belang is.

In die lig van die tema van vanjaar se Suid-Afrikaanse Biblioteekweek:  ’n Kultuur van Samewerking by Jou Biblioteek, moedig ek almal van julle aan om julle biblioteke op die hart te dra en hulle as jul eie te beskou. Gee jou tyd, vermoëns en passie om gesamentlik ’n bydrae te lewer tot die bemagtiging van die samelewing deur biblioteke aangesien hulle die gemeenskap en sy mense voed en onderhou. Ek moedig jou aan om na te dink oor die rol wat bibIioteke vervul, sowel as die bydrae wat dit gelewer het tot die verryking van jou lewe. Deel hierdie boodskap met ’n vriend, kollega of familielid en help ons met die bevordering van die waarde van biblioteke as die bemagtigende ruimte wat nodig is om ware verandering in ons lewens en dié van ander teweeg te bring.

Media Enquiries: 

Stacy McLean
Spokesperson for the Minister of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Anroux Marais
083 504 1171