With reference to an article entitled, Appeal to minister on libraries, which was published on one of our local newspapers (The Times, 30 March), I would like to air my views on the present impasse.

As an ex-chairman of the Malta School Library Association (MSLA) for five and a half years, I can fully understand what my colleague Robert Mizzi (ibid. p. 10) wrote in his article especially when he stated that “library matters in Malta and Gozo have fallen to such low priority levels”.

Recently, we have witnessed the opening of a new public library in Sliema. However, neither the MSLA (Malta School Library Association) nor the MaLIA (Malta Library Information Association) were involved in the process. Putting a collection together with no selection criteria, adding computers and giving a service depending on the availability of the person in charge is not a professional service.

It is said that “those who do the talking must do the walking”. Surely our society deserves more than talk in this area of libraries and librarianship. We all desire to have professionally trained teachers to teach our students a particular subject. Why then, when it comes to the information paradigm, which employs a myriad of cognitive activities – namely, information literacy – the tendency is to downgrade the information profession?

Surely, this situation should be addressed immediately. It is not the time either for the government or for any association to venture in the information paradigm alone. The concept of networking has not sunk in yet and ‘reading the signs of the times’ it is evident that lone rangers, especially in this field, are neither needed nor do they do any good to society. There is need for a new generation of information professionals, especially in the way networking is implemented.

Therefore, I join Robert Mizzi of MaLIA in his appeal regarding the information profession and all that it stands for. The government, and also the opposition for that matter, need to pull up their socks in this area and act immediately. Before thinking about benchmarking schools on reading or writing articles in local newspapers regarding the lack of reading by the Maltese, we should provide the necessary structure, that is, the professional service which society, by right, should receive from the government, whoever it may be.

Claudio Laferla

Librarian, DLIS