Appeal to minister on libraries

It may be hard to believe, but the newly appointed MaLIA (Malta Library and Information Association) council is the third appointed council that is making an attempt to meet the Minister of Education, Youth and Employment, Louis Galea.

When Lawrence Gonzi was appointed Prime Minister and started meeting various sectors of Maltese society, MaLIA had, through a letter dated May 14, 2004, asked for a meeting with him to discuss issues concerning the local library and information scene.

The reply from the OPM, dated June 4, 2004, suggested to MaLIA to first meet with the Minister of Education, Youth and Employment.

MaLIA duly accepted the suggestion and wrote to Dr Galea on September 4, 2004 asking for a meeting to discuss the following issues:

The proposed legislation on libraries

Recognition of the library profession

Register of qualified librarians

Funding for our libraries

Public libraries

School libraries

National library

Only an acknowledgement was received at the time but after some weeks MaLIA was contacted by phone and asked that the meeting with the Minister be postponed until after feedback for the draft legislation on libraries was received by the Ministry. MaLIA accepted this proposal and replied giving detailed feedback before the end of November of that year, despite the short time the ministry gave us for review and comments.

Since then, our repeated appeals to the Minister for a meeting included another letter dated May 5, 2005 (acknowledged) and an e-mail reminding him of our letter sent directly to the Minister's e-mail address on June 22, 2005 (left unanswered). Another letter to the Minister concerning the National Book Council and dated October 30, 2005 was again left unanswered (only an acknowledgement was received).

In view of the facts presented above, the MaLIA council is making an appeal to Dr Galea, as the Minister responsible for libraries, to accept our proposal for a meeting that has now been pending for too long.

While accepting that the Minister has various issues and areas to deal with, it is difficult to imagine that library matters in Malta and Gozo have fallen to such low priority levels that in 18 months no time was found to discuss what, as the recently published report on the State of Maltese Libraries has shown, are serious issues concerning the local library and information scene.