Library Map of the World

NIWA was formed in 1990 and strives to promote information services throughout Namibia. NIWA is open to all information workers and information institutions in Namibia. NIWA's objectives are:

• to unite all information workers in Namibia in an autonomous and representative body;
• to make and maintain contact with relevant international and national organizations;
• to raise the level of expertise of information workers by offering training seminars, workshop and other relevant activities;
• to advise academic institutions involved in training information workers in curriculum development.

Currently, NIWA have about 390 registered (paid up) members and 16 institutions as paid up members

The National Library of Namibia is the legal deposit and copyright library for Namibia. The National Library acts as the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) Agency for Namibia. This entails allocating ISBN/ISSN free of charge to books/serials published in Namibia.

The main objective of the Council is to promote the development and use of Library, Archives and information resources in Namibia for the benefit of the people of Namibia. The composition of the Council allows for representation by professional and interest groups on both local and regional to advise the Minister on the most effective means of ensuring access to information and knowledge in support of quality education, training and development, self-empowerment and lifelong learning.
The Council members are being appointed by the Minister of Education, Arts and Culture as mandated by the Namibia Library and Information Services Act, Act No. 4 of 2000.

The policy was prepared by a Legislation Committee appointed by the Minister of Basic Education and Culture and approved by Cabinet on 2 September 1997. The policy covers:

• strengthening the policy and legal framework for knowledge and lifelong learning;
• improving the quality and effectiveness of knowledge management systems;
• improving and strengthening equitable access to information and learning resources to ensure economic and social empowerment for communities and individuals;
• establishing public ICT access through the nationwide library network and
• improving access to and usage of both national and globally-sourced information through digital libraries and knowledge management systems.

The aim of the law, issued in 2000, is to provide for the establishment of the Namibia Library and Information Service, the National Library and the Namibia Library Information Council. To provide for the implementation of legal deposit and for incidental matters. To provide information and training to or conduct research on behalf of that library. Monitor adherence to the conditions of affiliation by that library.

National Library is designated by law to collect materials from Namibia or relating to Namibia. It should receive five copies of all materials that are published and intended to be generally available to the public, within two weeks of publication.
The Act defines documents subject to legal deposit as being ‘any information in textual, graphic, visual, auditory or other intelligible format stored through any medium, and any version or edition of a document which is significantly different from that document in respect of its information content or physical presentation and is considered to be a separate document’. What is mainly deposited are books, journals, annual reports and newspapers.
The National library gives access to deposited materials on-site and to researchers, but there is also a provision of scanning the documents and send them to users via emails (depends on the size of the document needed). It is also responsible for, on the basis of collected materials, creating a national bibliography.
Other institutions can be designated as ‘places of deposit’ and can receive copies of documents from the National Library.
The National Library is also responsible for co-ordinating and supplementing the acquisition, exchange, disposal or retention of any library material to ensure an adequate national library resources; provide access to its materials and to other information resources which are inside or outside Namibia through inter-lending, catalogues, databases, networking and user services.

The copyright law of Namibia includes no explicit library provisions. However, the fair dealing of a literary or artistic work for personal use in research or private study or teaching is not infringement, nor is quotation, or use in news reporting. In addition to reproductions permitted by the Act, other reproductions are permitted in prescribed circumstances when these do not conflict with normal exploitation of the work and are not unreasonably prejudicial to the legitimate interests of the owner of the copyright.
Upon enquiring, it seems the Namibian Copyright law includes no explicit library provisions, although the government has launched work towards an update to the law.

To become a professional Librarian, one needs a BA Degree in Library and Information Studies NQF L7 for the entry Librarian position and for Assistant Librarian, it requires a Diploma in Library Science. The qualification requirements are set for all library types in the Government structure.

The Department of Information and Communication Studies at the University of Namibia is producing the Librarians and Archivists with the BA Honours Degree in Library and Information Studies and a Higher Diploma in Library and Information Studies.

Readathon is a reading activity being organized by Education Library Service within the Directorate of Namibia Library and Archives Service. The main goal of the event is to instil the culture of reading in children while they are young. The main target of the event are learners in Primary and Secondary levels. The main event is being celebrated nationally on the last Friday of September every year.