By Fiona Galea Debono
Retired professional librarian Laurence Zerafa is continuing his lifelong mission to bring books and knowledge to African schools. His next stop is Morogoro, Tanzania, where he will spend three months setting up a new library at a Salesian novitiate house. Zerafa鈥檚 initiative had kicked off with the installation of a cataloguing system at one African school library in 2017 鈥 and he then proceeded to supply books to 63 other libraries, as well as building science laboratories, thanks to Maltese sponsors. This is his fourth visit to Africa since then, and, 鈥淕od, health and time willing鈥, he will continue to set up more libraries in its schools. Since he was 20, Zerafa had always wanted to carry out missionary work but studies, career and other things got in the way, and he was only able to go to Africa for a whole year just before he retired. Zerafa had taken time off from his role as head MCAST librarian to spend a year restructuring the library of a post-secondary Catholic mission school administered by the Salesians of Don Bosco. As a result of electronic cataloguing, libraries were not only better able to control what books were being lent or returned but some could also be transferred to other libraries, he had said about the introduction of the system. It allowed students who could not afford to buy their own textbooks to find these books at their school鈥檚 library more easily. In 2021, with help of a sponsor and a group of volunteers from Malta, he had collected and organised a shipment of two container loads of books, which were distributed to 63 libraries in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, catering for students from pre-primary to post-tertiary levels. Some 30 tonnes worth of donated books and other equipment, packed in 1,332 boxes, had reached their planned destinations. The pandemic had got in the way of Zerafa鈥檚 plans but it could not stop his 40-year-old dream to help schools in parts of East Africa update their libraries. He had forged on, surmounting several twists and turns. He subsequently visited most of these libraries during a four-month-long road trip in 2023, covering some 30 cities, towns, villages and remote hamlets. This latest library in Morogoro is the result of a year鈥檚 remote work, said Zerafa, looking forward to seeing it come to fruition and acknowledging the importance of this resource.