The City of Johannesburg (COJ) Libraries has been shortlisted at The London Book Fair International Excellence Awards 2020 for The Library of the Year Award. The COJ Libraries are up against Maadi Public Library (Egypt) and Shanghai Library (China).The winner will be announced at the LBF International Excellence Awards on 10 March 2020.
The Fair will take place at Olympia, West London from 12-14 March, and will cover all aspects of the publishing industry. The COJ’s MMC for Community Development as well as the Director for Libraries will fly to London for the award ceremony.” “Winning this award will not only motivate our City of Joburg librarians to work harder and see value in their efforts, but it may also influence decision-makers, sponsors, or even the communities to recognize that libraries matter so much that even the international community is applauding us,” said COJ eLearning Manager,Jeff Nyoka.
COJ libraries have to share their resources, taking tools like laptops from one library to another under-resourced library. Against all odds, the eLearning services unit introduced the Mobile Literacy programme, which has already benefited more than 10 000 library users between ages 8 to 16. Moreover, the programme has had a huge social impact on children, who now want to learn in a library environment and has inspired some of them to do coding and robotics through the Gamification programmes. Over the years, the mobile literacy program has collaborated with Google SA, received invitations to present the program abroad and received accolades.
