ABSTRACT
In 1980, the South African Library Association disbanded to make way for a non-racial professional organization, the South African Institute of Librarianship and Information Science. A national library network, SABINET, was established, and issues of networking, technology, costs, and cost recovery became dominant themes in professional discourse. It is noted that library services to the "developing black communities" were based mainly on models derived from developed countries and that black librarians and library users were becoming disenchanted with such models. African librarianship is a reformulation of the radical approach to address the problems of limited resources, poverty, and illiteracy. To a South African librarian the wealth of library resources in the United States is dazzling: the diversity of libraries, the rich collections, highly educated staff, powerful technology, and a multiplicity of cooperative systems and networks. South African library resources and facilities pale in comparison. The differences are arresting; the distance between the two countries seems vast.
