Library Books and Collection
The library possesses a wide assortment of books, as shown in the table below, which reflects the collection as it stood when we took the inventory in February 2010. Most of the books are small paperbacks and are available for borrowing, but some are designated as “reference” only. Books are given the “reference” designation if (a) they cost more than 10,000 shillings (i.e. about $4.00), (b) they are school textbooks, or (c) they are assigned as literature texts in the national syllabi for Luganda and English literature.
The most important and most popular of the categories listed below are “traditional” and “modern” stories.
The former are mainly African stories in English translation; the latter are stories about present-day, generally African, protagonists. “Health” and “Morals” books are also popular. They are mostly small paperbacks produced
by non-governmental and religious organizations, and in response to the AIDS pandemic, many of them focus
on sex education.
The “total books” column on the left of the table lists all the books that the library has ever acquired up to the beginning of 2010. In the ten years of the library’s operation some have been lost, especially in the most popular categories, and many others have been literally read to pieces. These books have been replaced whenever possible, while new ones have been steadily added. We make particular efforts to respond to readers’ requests on the one hand and to their borrowing patterns on the other.
