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Somalia
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Directory Information
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Somalia is a republic on the Horn of Africa. It lies in the northeastern corner of Africa, bounded by the Gulf of Aden on the north, the Indian Ocean on the east, and Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti on the west. It has the longest coastline in Africa, 3,000 km. Population (1990 est.) 7,497,000; area 637,657 sq.km. The official languages are Somali and Arabic, but English and Italian are also used in communication.
History. British and Italian authorities governed northern and southern Somaliland until 1960, when the two colonies united as the Somali Republic. A dictator ruled the country from 1969 to 1990, when warring factions began a fierce civil war that left thousands to die of starvation. The UN intervened in 1992 and worked to establish a stable government.
Somali became a written language only in 1972, and written Somali literature is not yet abundant, in spite of the language's rich cultural past. Also, bookdevelopment is of comparatively recent origin, and adequate printing and production facilities had yet to be organized in the early 1990s.
Library facilities in Somalia are in an early stage of development. Formal education and literacy training did not receive much attention in colonial times, and reading has been of little interest to the 80 percent of the population who are nomads. The lack of qualified staff is a serious barrier to the systematic organization of libraries. The importance of library and information services for supporting national development programs is recognized. Many government departments and agencies worked to set up library and documentation centers with the help of international organizations such as Unesco, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank. Other countries, among them the United States, Germany, Italy, and India, provided technical assistance in the field of librarianship and documentation.
There were no public libraries in the early 1990s; at the most there were a few reading rooms in some regions of the country.
National Library Services. Plans for a national library were begun in 1976 on the initiative provided bv Unesco. Proposals were made from time to time to construct a permanent building. The National Library holdings comprised only a few thousand items in the early 1990s. Under library legislation of 1976, the Ministry of Higher Education and Culture was given responsibility for library development. In spite of the enactment of library legislation and formulation of guidelines for evolving a national library system, there was no strong commitment on the part of the country to undertake development of libraries. Under a five-year development plan (1982-86), a permanent building for a National Library was under construction; it was badly damaged during the civil war.
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