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Swagga T
“Give someone a book, you have empowered them with the keys to unlock every door in life.” The Harare City Library is taking its role to provide such keys seriously, as it shakes off its ‘white elephant’ brand owing to its decaying infrastructure, worn-out and ancient books as well as lack of capacity to invest in the latest technological advances. All these challenges are now a thing of the past following massive renovations, restocking of books as well as the installation of computers all aimed at enhancing the performance of the library whose position as Harare’s central and leading library had dropped to an all-time low.

Many teens have expressed their joy over the new look saying it will help them more on their academics.
“I am happy that the library is back. I so loved the cool new look and one thing I applaud them on is the issue of technology where they made it important that it is a must in the library. Welcome to the 21st century,” said Tinotenda Chinoperekwa (17) from Waterfalls.

The Swedish Embassy through Culture Fund Zimbabwe came to the rescue of the library through a $1 million grant in 2012.
A library official said $250 000 from the money was channelled towards the purchase and restoration of books with the largest chunk of it going towards the refurbishment of the structure and the purchase of computers.

“We bought new books and computers, while a borehole was installed since we would normally go for about two weeks without water. One of the major things that we did was the sprucing up of the structure,” the official said.

A visit to the library by CLS revealed the major positive steps that the library had undergone, with their spacious computer (wi-fi) library that has a seating capacity of 32.
You can take your lap-top or other gadgets and sit anywhere you like. So the library is not all about musty and boring books, but a real exciting hangout where teens can do lots of hip stuff on the net. And reading is not always about school work. It is mostly about fun as you read about stuff that you like which could be celebrities or other topics that grab your attention.

Apart from the main library which normally caters for school pupils and adults, there is the children’s library where from the earliest school-going age children can attend and read books, colour or engage in other activities that are related to their school work and age-range.

The library would like encourage all children who can get there to go and fall in love with reading. And in a true catch them young fashion, they are looking to partner with pre-schools for visits to the children’s library where activities like story-telling and other activities like introduction to computers are carried out.
They also have the special library where those that need to really get serious and who don’t want distraction can study in private.

Just to get your reading juice up, CLS in conjunction with Harare City Library is offering teens a chance to win one of three free subscriptions to the library. To qualify for the promotion, just attach the front page of the latest copy of Cool Lifestyle together with an article not more than 100 words, answering ‘Why is the library important in your community?’
Submit your entry at the library or Herald House. The competition runs from 30 August- 30 October 2014. Winners will be announced in November.

The top three winners walk away with a year free subscription, the next three runners up will get six months and other three runners up will get three months. Let’s rock this library.