FunDza was invited by the Department of Arts and Culture to do a presentation to KZN librarians in Durban. It is always lovely to speak to librarians who share our passion for getting young people reading, and I hope that many of them will show their readers how they can extend their libraries by reading on their phones. Unfortunately we had to rush to the airport after the session so I couldn’t chat to individual librarians about their responses to our site, and whether they think they want to use it, but I am hoping I will hear from some of them in the future.
It was a great trip though. One of the highlights was meeting and chatting to Mongane Wally Serote. Over 30 years ago I did an English oral on his poetry at school, and when I visited my brother, Steve Dyer, in Botswana at the time, I met Doctor Serote, who autographed a book of his which I still treasure, The night keeps winking. See the picture of my book below.
It was very exciting to meet him again after all these years.
Dr Mongane Serote’s autograph in Dorothy Dyer’s copy of ‘The night keeps winking’.
I also met Tebogo Diketso, and listened to his presentation. Tebogo has an online Twitter reading club – ReadaBookSA – with over 30 000 followers, and so we are both in the same line of work, as it were. It was great to chat to him and find out more about what he is doing, and to tell him about our work too. He is an inspiring speaker and had the librarians clapping more than once!
Another co-speaker was Dr Tobias Schonwetter, an expert from UCT on copyright law. He said quite a bit of his session was ‘Copyright 101’, but I found is fascinating to think about copyright in a new way. He has also galvanised us at FunDza to rethink options of creative commons for stories on our own site.
And finally, I have to mention Mzo Zuma and Mr Patrick Zikode who were our most gracious hosts, and really looked after us. It was lovely to meet them both too.
All in all a very interesting day trip to Durban.