The first library: Pietermaritzburg, 1910-1945
4.2. The formative years, 1921 – 1936
4.2.2. Library staff, 1921 – 1936
Corporation of New York.304 This report provides a succinct overview of the situation in 1935:
Since 1923 the College grant for books to its Maritzburg Library has stood at
£250 per annum – a sum which now has to be distributed among nineteen subject departments. The College has been unable to consider requests for an increase in the amount owing to heavy demands for extension of staff and accommodation to deal with a greatly increased student roll. These demands have all occurred in recent years and since the stabilisation of the Government grant. The limitation of the library grant has told particularly hardly on the Arts departments, whose classes have doubled or trebled and in some cases
quadrupled in these years, and which on their small departmental grants find it impossible to keep up with the increased demands for reading material. But it tells no less on the Science departments which cannot afford the range of periodical literature necessary to keep a Science department up to date.305
The second part of the report deals with the necessity of classifying the collection, à propos the Librarian’s recommendation to the Committee on 8th August, 1935 that the Dewey Decimal Classification system be adopted and “that an application be made to the Carnegie Foundation [sic] for a grant to enable the turn over [to be] carried out.”306 The report requested funding both for a temporary assistant and for the purchase of Library of Congress catalogue cards, the latter in response to an earlier recommendation by the Librarian that a set of Library of Congress cards be ordered “for each new volume purchased, and, as funds permit, sets for books already in the library.”307
gassed and twice wounded. On demobilization from the Army he purchased a
smallholding in the Blackburrow area of Pietermaritzburg with his gratuity and settled to a life of dairy farming and polo until his appointment as part-time Librarian at the Natal University College in Pietermaritzburg. The exact date of his appointment is uncertain;
however he was certainly in place when the first Library Committee met on 11th October 1921. He did not possess any library qualifications, nor does he appear to have had any experience of working in a library. His selection for the post may have been based on his love of books and reading but was more likely based simply on the need for a job. This was the norm for most library staff in South Africa at the time. Pitt,309 in his report on the provision of library services in the universities and colleges of South Africa noted, regarding “expert [library] staff,” that “All are inadequately provided in this respect.”310 Ferguson, too, considered that “Nothing is more important in this work [library service]
than the librarian, and herein the country as a whole is in a sad plight.”311
Henry occupied the post of Librarian for twenty-three years, until his retirement in 1944.
He was, according to Brown, a “severe disciplinarian” with a rather abrupt manner who insisted upon total silence in the Library, “though he had a tendency to doze behind a newspaper when roped in to invigilate.”312 The years he spent as Librarian were not easy.
The Library’s annual book grant of £250, sometimes less, was inadequate. The Library itself was housed in the Main Hall for some fifteen years, until 1st July 1937, when the first Library building was opened. The Library premises themselves posed problems.
During dances and performances of the Dramatic Society curtains were discreetly drawn to hide the books. The curtains were, as was to be expected and as Brown points out,
“more useful for other purposes”313 and, to the consternation of all concerned, a curtain caught fire at a performance of the Dramatic Society in 1928 “as the result of
309 Messrs S.A. Pitt and M.J. Ferguson, from Scotland and the United States of America
respectively, visited South Africa in 1928 under the auspices of the Carnegie Corporation of New York to survey the library services of the Union, make recommendations for improvements and convene a national library conference. Their visit is considered to mark “the beginning of modern library development [in South Africa].” – L.E. Taylor, South African libraries, London: Bingley, 1967, p. 18.
310 S.A. Pitt, Memorandum, in P.C. Coetzee, Die Carnegie-biblioteeksending van 1928, Pretoria:
State Library, 1975, p. 44.
311 M.J. Ferguson, Memorandum, in P.C. Coetzee, Die Carnegie-biblioteeksending van 1928, Pretoria: State Library, 1975, p. 74.
312 Brown, History of the Library, Part 3, p. 1.
313 Ibid.
smoking.”314 The Library Committee took a serious view on the matter and reported it to Senate.
The increasing workload led the Library Committee, at its meeting of 3rd March 1924, to pass a resolution whereby Senate was to be asked to recommend to Council that a full- time Librarian be appointed. Confirmation of Council’s approval was noted at the Standing Library Committee meeting of 1st April 1924 and Captain Henry became full- time from this date. It was noted with satisfaction that this appointment resulted in an increase in the number of books borrowed “of over 66%” (in comparison with the same period as the previous year) and that “The afternoon attendance averaging 34 students is also satisfactory.”315
The formation of the South African Library Association (SALA) in 1930 on the recommendation of visiting overseas librarians Messrs M.J. Ferguson and S.A. Pitt represented a turning point for librarianship in South Africa, particularly with regard to the training of librarians. Up to this time persons wishing to train as librarians either had to study overseas or to undertake a correspondence course, usually that offered by the British Library Association.316 It was reported by the President of SALA at the first triennial general meeting that:
...the Transvaal Branch has started Correspondence Courses in Librarianship, and they are under the direction of Mr R.F. Kennedy [Librarian at the
Johannesburg Public Library], with the assistance of tutors. We have no longer now to look overseas. It is no longer necessary for young library students to get all their coaching from London or America.317
Although not young (he would have been in his fifties), Henry took advantage of the opportunity to acquire qualifications in librarianship. In June 1934 he had attended a SALA vacation school held in Durban and this no doubt encouraged him to acquire further skills. He wrote his first SALA examination in December 1936 and thereafter was entitled to place the initials ASALA (Associate of the South African Library Association) behind his name.
314 Natal University College, Pietermaritzburg Library Committee, Minutes of a meeting held on 14th August 1928.
315 Natal University College, Pietermaritzburg Library Committee, Minutes of a meeting held on 12th August 1924.
316 F.R. Bell, The Department of Information Studies, University of Natal, M.I.S thesis, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998, unpublished, p. 54.
317 Report of the first Triennial General Meeting of the South African Library Association, South African libraries, vol. 2, no. 1, July 1934, p. 7.