She has a way with books

Words inform our history, share ideas and breathe the thoughts of great men and women into our minds. As William Ellery Channing said: “Books are true levelers. They give to all who will faithfully use them.they allow for intercourse with great minds.”

A discussion with Norma Amenu Kpodo, acting campus librarian, UWI Mona was an enjoyable intercourse with a powerful mind.

Kpodo is the recipient of the Library and Information Association of Jamaica (LIAJA) inaugural Librarian of the Year 2002 Award. Wearing a kinte scarf, and her hair plaited, Kpodo is relaxed at her office at the Mona campus.

She expressed her deep appreciation and elation for having attained this prestigious honour and passionately commits her unwavering dedication to the enhancement of the information services in Jamaica and the world at large.

“I will involve myself in anything that concerns library and information matters,” she promises.

Last year’s LIAJA award is another achievement for Kpodo a practising librarian for almost 40 years. She hails from the parish of St Mary, and attended Wolmer’s Girl School. Upon graduation she migrated to Canada where she gained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History at the University of Saskatchewan and later a BLS in Library Sciences from the University of Toronto.

She gained even more experience in her chosen profession in 1965 by accepting an offer as an assistant librarian with the Toronto Public Libraries, a job she held for one year.

Shortly after she moved to Ghana, a move solicited by an employment offer at the Balme Library at the University of Ghana where she held various librarian posts. She lived in Ghana for 14 years; while there, she married a Ghanaian chemist with whom she has one child, a daughter.

The UWI was her next step.

Yet, despite the enormous academic achievements and appointments, Kpodo maintains an air of humility and genuine passion for her profession. “I’ve always done the best I could, in the manner I could, but it was a surprise to me to have been selected Librarian of the Year. I knew my name was submitted but one thing you must know about LIAJA is that the association has many distinguished librarians, so I was a bit surprised when I was selected,” she recalls.

As acting campus librarian, 2002-2003, the LIAJA celebrates her stalwart achievements in spearheading the implementation of three new facilities in the Main Library, thus encouraging a student-centred environment. The creative use of the library space brought about an audiovisual room, a reading room with computers fitted with software for the visually challenged, and a postgraduate reading room equipped with computers. In addition, the Overnight Reading Room was equipped with a number of computers so that users of this facility now have Internet access. During this period she also coordinated the publication of Research for Development, Vol.II which was launched at Research Day in January 2003.

She avows her commitment to LIAJA’s mission: To provide leadership in the development and promotion of resources in the library profession in order to facilitate access to the use of information for national growth. It’s a professional association seeking to protect the interest and welfare of its members. It seeks to improve the information circumstances in the country so that information becomes accessible for everybody at every stage of the information process,” she explains.

Kpodo’s dynamism is further exhibited in her initiation and establishment of the Retired Members Society, an initiative that falls under the Umbrella of the LIAJA. The Retired Members Section is a booming success story as it serves to promote the interests and welfare of its membership and LIAJA members at large, develop a memory bank for the association and allows for the transfer of knowledge and experience between the senior /retired librarians and acting members. Certainly, retired librarians represent a wealth of untapped resources that serves to strengthen and enrich librarianship, cultural exchange and historicity.

“When an old person dies, it’s like a library burns down,” she admonishes.

Kpodo’s ongoing involvement with library associations surpasses our national borders. She is active in the international sphere serving on the executive board of the International Federation of Library Association and the longest serving executive secretary of the Commonwealth Library Association, COMLA.

Her face shines with passion as she asserts, “I have always been an “associations” person.”

Under the COMLA umbrella she has spearheaded various workshops, seminars and conferences internationally and locally. One such seminar was the conference of special librarians held in Kingston in 1998. She was also responsible for the publication of its proceedings as a monograph entitled, Special Libraries in the Caribbean on the Threshold of the New Millennium, June 2002. This publication is the first on special librarianship in the Caribbean. Additionally, she was very instrumental in the planning of the COMLA Seminar 2000 on User Education for User Empowerment held at Christ Church, New Zealand.

Her diligent and persistent work certainly reaps tremendous rewards. The University of the West Indies, Mona Information Literacy Unit has recently received the Sirs Mandarin Award for Leadership in the Development of Information and/or Research Skills Programme from the Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries, ACURIL. This award recognizes a school, academic, public or national library for its innovative, creative and effective achievement in the planning and development of an information and/ or research skills programme or service for the benefit of its clientele, using information technologies. Secondly, the Association honoured Kpodo with the Caribbean Information Professional of the Year 2003 award for the English-speaking Caribbean. This award recognizes her individual commitment, excellence in performance, and outstanding professional achievement.

The indomitable Kpodo is a gregarious woman of enormous vision and passion. When she looks to the future she says, “I want to see the University Library become a world class library, I see a more dynamic set of commonwealth associations.” In tandem with this vision is a personal burden for the youth. “I see bright young people, full of enthusiasm, channeling their energies in the institutions that they are involved with,” she states proudly, but says that there is a need for more opportunities for productive endeavours and that today’s youth need a greater sense of entrepreneurship and creativity.