University of Zambia

The University of Zambia (UNZA) offers both an undergraduate and graduate program in Library and Information Science but does not offer a course in children/youth librarianship, a fact that has underscored our direct partnership with UNZA over the years.

UNZA Library officials recently identified space in the University Library, adjacent to their own cataloging operation, where we can catalog and process books for Lubuto library collections. This activity had been conducted in Washington, DC to date, but we are ready to transfer that activity there. The plan is that this will also greatly benefit UNZA LIS students and faculty. UNZA interns will be able to gain hands-on, practical experience in cataloging, classification, acquisition and selection of excellent children’s and young adult literature—and collection development—through internships on their own campus. In addition, Lubuto staff will coordinate with the LIS faculty to teach these essential areas of children and youth services.

Zambian Educational Publishing House

A preservation effort Lubuto embarked upon several years ago has led us to pursue a unique partnership with the Zambian Educational Publishing House (ZEPH) that will support their sales of reprinted Zambian literature. While Lubuto libraries’ policy is to include 100% of what is published for young people in Zambia, that literature is scarcely in print in Zambian languages. In discussion with ZEPH’s publishing and marketing officials we established that the digital editions Lubuto is working to preserve not only would not hurt sales of the reprinted books but, along with stocking them in non-circulating Lubuto libraries, would actually promote knowledge of and sales of the books.

While librarians and publishers have traditionally been natural partners, the advent of ebooks has strained the traditional relationship in some areas. We are happy to present an example of how a digitization project actually forged a new partnership between a publishing house and a library, to the benefit of all.

Zambia Library Service

The Zambia Library Service (ZLS), part of Zambia's educational ministry, manages the public library network throughout Zambia and assists other organizations by providing library and information services. Lubuto formalized its partnership with the Ministry and the Zambia Library Service in a 2008 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that identified Lubuto as a crucial National Partner in attaining the Millennium Development Goals. ZLS has long recognized the value of their partnership with us in strengthening their support within their Ministry and asked us if we could build Lubuto libraries along with ZLS libraries in each of Zambia’s provinces. In May, 2014 we signed an amended MOU with the Ministry outlining further details of how Lubuto and ZLS will work together to extend high quality library services to youth through Lubuto libraries at each of the provincial ZLS Libraries.