A Day Spent at UNAM, Namibia Publishing House, and the Ministry of Education

Our final day touring Windhoek was jam packed with activities. We spent most of the day visiting various departments at UNAM, the University of Namibia, then made stops at the Namibia Publishing House and finally the Ministry of Education.

First we met with the reference services librarian, Jakobina Mwiiyale, who prepared for us a presentation on the University and its library. Her presentation was impressive, giving us a comprehensive look at UNAM’s programs, curriculum, and focuses. With 12 campuses, 36 undergraduate degrees, 19 master’s programs, 12 Ph.D. programs, and nearly 21,000 students nationwide, including 8 regional centers for distance education, UNAM’s system is quite large. The majority of students enter the education program, adding to the number of qualified teachers in Namibia, which will only strengthen their educational system down the road.

Jakobina talking to students after a brief tour of the technical services department at UNAM library

UNAM’s library serves the students, faculty, and staff, and has a budget based on the number of students enrolled, which is steadily increasing each year. Post graduate research support facilities and services is a focus – inter-library loans, OPAC, a scholarly repository, many database subscriptions, and Research4Life, offering free or low cost access to professional material/databases for developing countries. The library makes use of LibQual surveys to determine how users evaluate the library – it details where improvements can be made and where they’re succeeding.

We’d spent the week preparing for a presentation we were set to give to the library students, under Dean and Professor Kingo Mchombo, at UNAM and were all slightly nervous yet thrilled to be presenting to our peers. Would they like it and find it useful, asking good questions lending to a vibrant discussion? Or would they deem it dull, a waste of their time? Thankfully, it was the former, the students engaged and curious. We took turns speaking about issues and challenges facing the library and information science world in the US, talking about how the concept of “the library” is continuously changing and evolving – issues of intellectual property rights, diversity, school librarianship, archives, and born digital material. They then reversed the role and spoke about their program, detailing the marketing side of library services and how it’s important to make people aware of the library. It was great to hear from them directly and fascinating to see the differences between our programs.

After lunch we stopped at the Human Rights and Documentation Center at UNAM, meeting with Dr. Chiku Mchombo, where she explained that the HRDC aims to bring human rights awareness to Namibia and Southern Africa. They collect and disseminate information to the public and University staff, faculty and students and also have a collection on HIV/AIDS available. They’re active in many projects, which are detailed on the website.

Book given to us about human rights in Namibia, from the HRDC

We made a short trip to the Namibia Publishing House where we learned they publish books in the 13 indigenous languages of Namibia until grade three. They publish fiction and non-fiction, textbooks, teachers’ guides, and are also home to a bookshop, where each of us gladly spent our money buying books. To finish off the week, we met with Veno Kauaria at the Ministry of Education. She gave us a realistic assessment of how she sees her challenges as Director of the Namibian Library and Archives Service. Tomorow we have a day to relax and recharged before hitting the road to Oshakati for the second half of our program next week. Check back then!

Books lining the shelves at NPH in Namibia’s indigenous languages