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Lance Corporal Tremayne Hunte and Lance Corporal Dondru Bullen of the Grantley Adams School Cadet Corps raise the flag at the opening of the Tamarind Hall Branch Library. Observing are (from left) Evonda Callendar, Acting Director of the Barbados National Library Service; Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Shirley Farnum; Minister of State in the Ministry of Education and Human Resource, Patrick Todd; Minister of Community Development and Culture, Steve Blackett; Reverend Errington Massiah and Deputy Director of the NLS, Mary Waldron.

Island’s library service needs more personnel

10/22/2009

By Khalil Goodman

The Barbados Library Service has continued to expand its range of services to meet the Barbadian public’s needs in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the service needs more staff so that these services can be provided consistently.

“Presently we have 38 posts and we need additional staff to help provide services more efficiently,” said Evonda Callendar, Acting Director of the Barbados National Library Service.
She spoke to the Barbados Advocate after the opening of the Tamarind Hall Branch Library in St. Joseph, at the Eric Holder Municipal Complex. This branch brings the number of libraries of the service to eight.

Callendar said that the library offers story hour and the Tamarind Hall centre will be offering a workshop for young writers to come and learn how to get their work published. There is also an outreach programme with the branches and primary schools to encourage reading.

There are also computer services on offer and the branches will soon offer a writer’s workshop on Saturdays to encourage young writers to come in and read their work Minister of Community Development and Culture, Steve Blackett, in his opening remarks for the space, said the National Library Service must join the world in upgrading its services.

“The services to be provided by the National Library Service are e-books, online databases and audio-visuals,” he noted.

Echoing acting Director Callendar, the Minister said it must be acknowledged that if these innovations are to be implemented successfully then the staff of the national library service “must themselves stay in tune with international developments in the field”.

He added, “The Barbados National Library Service there intends to implement a structured training programme to equip its staff with requisite knowledge on technological innovation and management skills… the importance of training and re-training cannot be overemphasised.”

But the challenges to full implementation may be more than one of sheer numbers. Presently 37 Library assistants, three senior librarians, a coordinator, the director and deputy director man these eight branches, including the Bridgetwon headquarters.

With two librarians at the new Tamarind Hall Branch, Callendar says that at least one library assistant is needed and someone who is trained in information technology as the new centre boasts a state of the art computer resource centre.

“We get over one thousand persons using the Internet services and research [facilities] per month in Bridgetown,” said the director. “Maybe more than that and almost as many at the other branches, even Oistins [where] there is only one computer. Therefore, we will need to have someone who can fix [minor] IT issues so we don’t have to request assistance from town if anything happens.”

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as of close 9/15/2009


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