The Shift from Apartheid to Democracy: Issues and Impacts on Public Libraries in Cape Town, South Africa

Providing all citizens with free and equal access to information allows democracy to flourish. Integral to democratic governments, public libraries have both social and political responsibilities. South Africa's 1994 shift from apartheid to a democratic republic makes it an ideal nation through which to investigate the struggles and issues faced as a public library system adapts to a new political structure. South Africa's public libraries did not automatically receive the assumed benefits of the shift from apartheid's oppressive regime of segregation and inequality to a democratic government. Rather, it is a work in progress. South African libraries face social, political, and economic issues such as: unfair allocation of resources, severe social conditions and problems with support from the government including problematic rhetoric within the New Constitution. LIASA (Library & Information Association of South Africa) has admirably begun to fulfill an important role in library development in South Africa. With appropriate funding and support from all levels of government and from local, national, and international library organizations, the public libraries in South Africa can become the beacons of democracy that they are intended to be.