LIBRARY. South Africans don’t dig deep for information

Thembi Masser

Making decisions about careers and which field of occupation to follow is not an easy matter. Especially in South Africa where the majority of black Africans have no guiding light to shine in their way, either at schools or at home. But Glad Khoza, an information scientist graduate, was lucky. Her lecturer gave her valuable advice when all was gloom and dark for her. But now it is, like they say in the movies, mission accomplished.

There was not much advice Glad received from her high school in Mkhuhlu, Hobo Secondary, so she went to the University of Limpopo, Turfloop campus very much in the dark about the law degree she so much wanted to do. Even at school, the subjects she chose where no where related to the law studies she envisaged to delve in later in her life. She liked life orientation out of curiosity, it was interesting. And her teacher made easy to understand, he was not complicated. Her other subjects included history, agriculture, life sciences, mathematical literature and languages, English and Xitonga.

  

After her matric Glad, 22 now, went to the university to apply to study law but to her horror, applications for the law faculty were already closed. “I stood there with my hands on head,” she recalls. All the spaces available for law students were already filled up. So she settled for the smallest class she could find, information science. “But now I am not bitter about the switch, I love information science.”

She says you study information science to be information professional.  It is four years of study. She is now in her fourth year and is doing research at public libraries across the country. She will also do further practical work at her campus library.

“This year our class is the smallest ever, probably in all the universities in South Africa,” she laughs. There is only 76 of us, and the authorities always remind us that it is the biggest ever.”  One of their lecturers, Rachel Mahlatji, offered advice in their first when they still rookies. She was aware that they were disillusioned, hijacked into a class because there was plenty of space available for registration. But her students had no clue what information science was, only glad to be university students. She said, “Do your level best in this profession, you will not be sorry.” So they put their shoulders to the wheel and soldiered on.”  Ms Mahlatji said at the time the country needed cataloger and classifiers, and if we did well, there will not be unemployed, never.”

A cataloger is a person who catalogues library materials and a classifier classifies library material as well.  But you can work anywhere with this degree. Her studies have opened her eyes to very disturbing information- South Africans do not consume information at all. “What is happening is not even the tip of an iceberg. People do not dig deep to find information and to explore it. We stick with what we know and we do not examine and too much issues that confront us.”

Glad is happy at the moment, a far cry from the beginning of her studies at university. She started her education at the Saringwa primary then proceeded to Hobo Senior in Mkhuhlu, Mpumalanga.