<>

To: Council Reporter/Chief Reporter From: Linda Harrison - CCC Communications Team

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

© Scoop Media