The Importance Of Legislation In The Provision Of National And Public Library Services In Zambia

Legislation plays an important role in the provision of public and national library services. However, in Zambia libraries that perform the functions of public and national libraries are operating without a legislative mandate. As a result, there is a fragmentation of library services as there is no single institution which performs all the functions of a national library service. Although several efforts were made before to enact national library service legislation, no Act of Parliament has been passed to date (2014). This study sought to provide empirical evidence to refine our insight of the benefits of having national library service legislation and the consequent implications of not having any legislation in the provision of library services. Quantitative data was collected through questionnaire administration to public library staff; interviews with senior government officials, and executive members of the ZLA and ZALICO; and document analysis on text from grey literature. The existence of the statistical significance of association between “Importance of library legislation” and “Provision of library services in Zambia” was measured and confirmed using Pearson chi-square χ2. Public library facilities, services and collections in Zambia were found to be below par, and it was concluded that this was due to lack of library legislation. The study recommends that appropriate legislation that puts together the functions of public and national libraries under one institution be enacted in Zambia as soon as possible. It is also recommended that further research be undertaken to investigate the current status of library facilities, services and collections in selected neighbouring countries where library legislation has been passed.