Please join us in our discussion.

Date: April 22, 2021
Time: 14h00 – 16h00, , Johannesburg (SAST)
Topic: Ikhathalogu yeeNcwadi zesiXhosa zooMuntuza (zaBantwana): (Making Children’s Books Accessible to All)
Link: Email us at webinars@puku.co.za for the ZOOM link

The fourth of Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science is to save time for the reader. This means that libraries should offer and organize their collections in ways that enable readers to find what they want as easily and efficiently as possible.

However, existing information on children’s books in indigenous languages, especially at ECD and foundation phase levels is not easily accessible. There is no central, easily accessible source of data on South African children’s books, not only from publishers but also non-commercial content produced by non-profits.

Puku is embarking on a pilot project on collaborative development of catalogues in indigenous languages for ECD and Foundation phases.

Puku has identified an editorial team of isiXhosa language and literacy specialists who will be responsible for curating content from the central catalogue to the webinar on the production of the isiXhosa catalogue and its value to the linguistic community.

This pilot project speaks to a need for catalogues of children’s books in indigenous languages to enable consumers to identify and access the best books in their languages. Developing a central catalogue for each language will be a monumental task and experience has taught us that it is better to take a modular approach based on existing capacity and resources. We will therefore start with the isiXhosa catalogue and based on the lessons learned, we will be able to move on to the other languages.