Addis Ababa. (Photo via CNN)
Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
Published: April 23rd, 2019
Addis Abeba’s City Administration Shares Vision of New City Library
New York (TADIAS) — Addis Abeba’s City Administration just shared its new vision for a city library and it’s impressive. In a recent tweet by Addis Standard, a brief video of the library plan reveals the project as scheduled to be built across from the Parliament building and situated on approximately 38,000 square meters of land. The city library is slated to have theater halls and meeting spaces as well as include an adult and children’s library sections.
#Ethiopia: #AddisAbeba City admin unveils plan to build "AA City Library" located opposite the Parliament building. It will rest on 38,687 sq m land & will host 3,500 ppl at a time. It will also have separate sections for kids & adults, 3 meeting halls, theaters & a parking lot. pic.twitter.com/Powyv0blU0
— Addis Standard (@addisstandard) April 23, 2019
Currently there are several children’s library initiatives including through the non-profit organizations Ethiopia Reads and Whiz Kids Workshop. To date Ethiopia Reads has launched over 80 public school and mobile libraries across the country, which serves over 100,000 children per year. Ethiopia Reads has also trained 150 librarians to date. The award-winning television series, Tsehai Loves Learning, launched by Whiz Kids Workshop has also expanded to include a classroom library project that provides children’s story books, flash cards, and 32 episodes of the TV series on DVD to enhance early childhood literacy skills.
For adult readers, a brief compilation of public and academic libraries in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Abeba, which was published in Against the Grain (Vol 20, Issue 1) by Marie Paiva lists Addis Ababa University as housing a multi-branch academic library with over 500,000 items as well as the Addis Ababa Public Library that is accessible for all residents, which holds mostly text collections in English. There is still a great need for more libraries and related resources in the city as well as greater opportunities for librarian training. Addis Abeba’s new city library project is a positive step in the right direction, and we hope will include texts and content that are multi-lingual and extensively diverse in subject matters.
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Related:
Spotlight: Ahmedin Mohamed Nasser’s Library Foundation For Ethiopia
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