Professional Training

In an earlier post about the re-opening of the Public/National Library I mentioned that the Minister with responsibility for the Public/National Library spoke of the dearth of trained library professionals island-wide. Well the government is looking to remedy that situation a evident in the offerings in the 2010 round of National Development Scholarships. This year's scholarship offerings include Library and Information Science, Conservation Studies and Archives.

National Development Scholarships are directed to candidates pursuing courses considered to be of critical importance to national development. Winners are provided with state funds for the duration of their academic studies.


Good news indeed.

Public Library Re-opens

After approximately two (2) years, that's right, two years the main branch of the Public Library / National Library Service has re-opened. It has been a period of promises and rumours of re-opening but until now no evidence to support these. This re-opening however is restricted to the lending services sections. The opening of the Reference Dept, the section which houses materials used by students to prepare for school based assessments, to do research for projects and to study for CXC and CAPE (O and A) level exams is yet to be opened.

This section is also the one where access to Barbadian and Caribbean material is facilitated. There is no other library in the country which provides this service to the public, and to the best of my knowledge, except minimally through the larger branches,which are in themselves very small spaces, no arrangements to accommodate this were made during the period of closure.

At least this present government seems to be aware of the importance of the Public Library / National Library Service and its value to the citizens. An early Christmas present or an Independence honour? Whatever it may be termed this re-opening is a good thing.

Barbados discusses Freedom of Information Bill

The Barbados Government recently circulated the long awaited Freedom of Information bill. This piece of legislation seeks to provide access to documents or records of government agencies. The legislation seeks to make government information more freely available to the public.

The Freedom of Information Bill can be access on the government
website and in pdf here.

Discussion on the Bill and its provisions are encouraged through a series of town hall meetings and via electronic means.

To have an idea of the response thus far to the legislation check out the following blogs:
Barbados Underground, The Bajan Reporter and Barbados Free Press.

For more information on access to information in the Caribbean region have a look at Fay Durrant's article in the open access journal First Monday.

Same ole story

On hearing the news that the headquarters/main branch of the National/Public Library was soon to be relocated the Nation Newspaper of September 6, 2007 carried this cartoon:



Out of the mouth of babes?