RLUK19 | Gwenda Thomas - Are libraries neutral spaces - or places for 'The Perfect Cultural Storm?'
Channel: ResearchLibrariesUK
Date: 2019-04-05

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Are libraries neutral spaces – or places for ‘The Perfect Cultural Storm’

This paper reflects on how the covering of an artwork in a South African university library during the social activism campaigns compromised the principles of artistic freedom. Over a period of four years, circumstances precipitated into a ‘Perfect Storm’ that pitched the principle of ‘library as neutral space’ into crisis when the previous Vice-Chancellor issued a written instruction to the University Librarian to perform an act of censorship, in the name of cultural transformation, to arrange for coverings to be placed back on the Sarah Baartman sculpture.

The former University Librarian who, when confronted by ‘The Perfect Storm’ precipitated at the highest executive level of authority in the university, took steps to uphold the library as a neutral space by invoking the university’s value statement and national library association’s code of ethics.

Gwenda Thomas is the Director, Scholarly Services and University Librarian at the University of Melbourne since May 2018. Her previous experience includes academic library leadership positions in the South African higher education sector at the University of Cape Town where she was the Executive Director of Libraries and the Library and Information Studies Centre (LISC) (2011-2018) and the Director of Library Services at Rhodes University (2006- 2011) in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape Province. For the greater part of her professional career, she held senior management positions in the Department of Library Services at the University of South Africa (Unisa) in different capacities between 1989-2000.

At the international level, Gwenda is a member of the User Advisory Boards for ProQuest and EBSCO. She was the elected representative for the EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) region at the OCLC Global Council (2008-2011) and Chair: EMEA Regional Council (July 2010- June 2011). In 2013, she was named the 2011“Alumnus of the Year” for the Department of Information Science at the University of South Africa (Unisa). In 2018, The University of Cape Town elected her to the rank of Emeritus Academic Officer.

Since 1987, she has published more than twenty papers in a variety of international and South African journals and conference proceedings and has contributed chapters to books.