wfn.org | New library will house classrooms, bindery, pan-African archives

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Aug. 9, 1999 News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-31-71BP{418}

NOTE:  A photograph will be available with this story.

By Lynne DeMichele*

MUTARE, Zimbabwe (UMNS) - The first thing you hear in the mornings at Africa
University, high in the hills of eastern Zimbabwe, is the chug-chug of a
cement mixer -- like a mechanical heartbeat on this ever-expanding campus
established just seven years ago by the United Methodist Church. 

Building is a constant here; and about 150 workers labor on various projects
on any given day.
One of those projects, a new $2.9 million, two-and-a-half-story library,
keeps between 60 and 70 workers busy daily. 

The finished structure, due for completion next July, will house more than
250,000 volumes and seat 330 students at a time. It will also contain
classrooms and its own bindery for repair of books. An additional feature
will be the housing of the future archive of the United Methodist Church in
Africa.

The current library, in the university's administration building, is only a
fraction of the size of its imminent replacement. A large portion of its
collection must be stored at this point, for lack of shelf room, and seating
space is so limited that students often must take reference books out into
the adjoining courtyard to study.

When Africa University opened in 1992, it had just 40 students in the first
incoming class. Today, 920 students are enrolled for the coming term, which
begins in August. Construction struggles to keep up with the burgeoning need
for educational space, as each incoming class is considerably larger that
the one before it. Completion of the 29,500-square-foot library will bring
some needed relief for this growing pressure. 

The university receives strong support from across the denomination, both
financially and through volunteer help. During the last  six months, the
university has received mission teams from Alabama, South Carolina and West
Virginia, and from the California-Pacific and Peninsula Delaware annual
conferences.

With so much effort concentrated on the future, a corresponding aspect of
the university library will be focused on the past. The new library will be
the repository of the history of the church in Africa - a first. 

"So much of our history has been preserved only through oral tradition,"
said Andra Stevens, director of Africa University's Office of Information.
"The church is growing phenomenally in Africa and has had a great impact on
people's lives. We feel a real need to document this progress."  

Stevens pointed out that "the new generation doesn't have a sense of where
we've come from. We can gather strength from (our past) and learn from it."

That in mind, Africa University Librarian Bilha Pfukani spent two weeks in
intensive training recently at the United Methodist Department of Archives
and History in Madison, N.J.  Charles Yrigoyen, top staff executive of the
archives, and Dale Patterson, the church's general archivist, will conduct
similar training in Harare, Zimbabwe, in August for librarians from annual
(regional) conferences around Africa. 

The sessions are a first step in forming a network of trained archivists who
can feed historical records, documents and photographs into the new
continental archive at Africa University. This central church archive will
be housed on the third floor of the library building now under construction.
Next year, according to Pfukani, an archivist will be hired to staff it.

All of the funding for the library so far has come from American Schools and
Hospitals Abroad, a U.S. government agency. Because Africa University draws
students from across the continent and across denominational lines, concern
for potential church-state conflict was not a hindrance. 

Even as the new library's first building phase is being completed,
application has been made for an additional $1.8 million in U.S. government
funding for phase two, which will add an expanded computer center as well as
state-of-the-art teleconference facilities. 

The goal is to facilitate outreach and "distance education," Pfukani said.
"The university will form selective partnerships and linkages with other
institutions around the continent in order to establish sub-regional centers
for study." The vision, she said, "is to be able to beam instruction to
several countries. We can reach more people that way and truly become a
continental university."

A year from now, after the new library building has been completed, Pfukani
and her staff of five will turn their attention to new programs. The
library, its catalogue already computerized, will move up to a new, more
sophisticated operating system that will ultimately allow for connections to
all campus offices and all students' rooms for a campus-wide intranet.

"We're looking at an Innopac (UNIX-based) system," Pfukani said. "There are
innovative interfaces developed by librarians, in modules so we can link up
in phases." She estimated the system would cost around $172,000. 

As the university adds programs, the library must be ready to provide
necessary resource materials. 

"We try to plan with campus development so as to meet those needs," Pfukani
said. Some courses in library science are now offered, and new programs for
the near future will likely include women's studies, a center for African
studies and outreach programs such as a mobile library. A new school of
medicine, which is a goal the university hopes to achieve by 2005, would
necessitate establishing a medical library. 

"No matter how much space we have," Pfukani observed, "we're always going to
need more."

A striking feature of the new library's architecture will be a large, open
foyer. Pfukani is considering using that area to display artwork and
artifacts from the cultures of all the other countries represented at the
university.

"The joy of this job is to start afresh," she added, "to start something
new."

And while the ever-present cement mixers keep turning to provide mortar for
the expanding campus, Africa University will be preserving the heritage of
the African church as well as providing well-educated teachers, theologians
and business leaders to help build their countries' futures.

How to help the Africa University Library: The library collection was
started with thousands of donated volumes, most of them theology books. At
this point, the library particularly needs books on education, but "only the
most recently published," said Bilha Pfukani, school librarian. American
colleges and universities interested in donating such texts should contact
the library office at P.O. Box 1320, Mutare, Zimbabwe; e-mail:
africau@harare.iafrica.com.

# # #

*DeMichele is director of communication for the Indiana Area United
Methodist Church. She recently returned from a mission trip to Africa
University with 68 other Hoosier United Methodists. Both the North and South
Indiana annual conferences have committed to raising funds to build
dormitories for Africa University.

______________
United Methodist News Service
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