Library Launches Afrikaans Collection
< MEDIA RELEASE 19 June
2008 Library Launches Afrikaans
Collection Christchurch's growing Afrikaans community will
have ready access to books in their own language, with next
week's launch of the Christchurch City Libraries' Afrikaans
collection. The Afrikaans collection will join books in
Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Persian, Russian, French,
German, Spanish, Dutch, Thai and Vietnamese - making the new
section the thirteenth in the Libraries' World languages
collection. Libraries and Information Manager Carolyn
Robertson says the Afrikaans collection will open with
around 250 items - a mixture of fiction, non fiction and
children's material. "We were originally approached four
years ago with a request to provide books in Afrikaans,"
says Mrs Robertson. "At that time we felt we could not
support a collection, but since then there has been an
increase in the number of Afrikaans speakers, and strong
support from the Afrikaans community to have a collection.
We've been able to revisit the request and meet the demand."
The views of local Afrikaans speakers were sought to help
City Libraries decide what the collection would offer. The
majority of items were then sourced overseas. The
collection, housed in the World Languages section of the
Central Library in Gloucester Street, will be launched on
Wednesday 25 June. ends
To:
Council Reporter/Chief Reporter From: Linda Harrison -
CCC Communications Team