Developing school library services for primary and secondary schools in disadvantaged areas in South Africa 1997-2002

The LPYL project focused on human resource development rather than on the provision of material resources such as computers, books and shelving. Furthermore, the project was designed to explore some of the untested innovations in the South African Policy Framework among a sample of school librarians in all of South Africa’s nine provinces.

The project was also designed as a North-South collaboration to provide exchanges of knowledge and expertise between Swedish and South African library personnel.

The project has comprised two phases involving South Africa’s national and provincial education departments and two South African non-governmental organisations, Sweden’s Bibliotek i Samhälle (BiS) and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). For Phase One the South African nongovernmental organisation was the Library and Information Workers’ Organisation (LIWO). But when this organisation ceased to operate, Education Policy Unit, (EPU) Natal, became the South African partner for Phase Two.