An Academic Library as a National Reference Library: contributions of Makerere University Library in promoting civic literacy

According to Kranich, Reid and Willingham (2004), “New civic engagement initiatives on campuses offer a perfect opportunity for libraries to fulfill their traditional roles of promoting civic literacy and ensuring an informed citizenry”. Makerere University Library (Maklib) has made deliberate endeavours to this end. Having been in existence for 64 years, Maklib serves both as an academic library and since 1972, through the fifth National Development Plan as a national reference library for Uganda. Therefore, Maklib does not only serve the university community but also external registered users. Maklib has conducted on-demand information literacy training for officials in the Uganda government such as the army, individual officials, etc. The paper examines the role of promoting access to unique national and regional archives housed at Maklib in promoting civic literacy using the SWOT method. Access to the archival collection has enabled users to peer into Uganda’s and regional history thereby explaining the prevailing political and social atmosphere. Maklib has been involved in school outreach programmes. The school outreach programme has been a highlight in the events that have characterized the annual World Library Day celebrations hosted annually in May at Makerere University. The school outreach has been seen as a source of inspiration to the young generation who will eventually be groomed into civic literate citizens. The paper underlines the successes and lessons learnt during Maklib’s school outreach programmes. The author conducted a follow up mini study to capture the learners’ and teachers’ experience of Maklib’s outreach programme. The study revealed that the learners and teachers from the selected school were greatly inspired by this programme, which has also equipped them to be better and informed citizens. The paper highlights the impact of Maklib’s outreach programme and lessons learnt that other players can adopt for similar initiatives in the quest to continue to civic literacy to the citizenry of Uganda. The paper reveals the enabling environment and strategies that Maklib has employed to this end. It finally, concludes by showing the need to evaluate the various training programmes that Maklib conducts and it calls on more players to join the school outreach programmes underscoring the need demonstrated in the study.