A librarian from Simon’s Town is celebrating 37 years of service at Ocean View Public Library.
Fatima Kiel (59) first started assisting at the library in 1988.
She recently received a certificate for long service from the City of Cape Town for her valued contribution at the library.
Kiel says she was first introduced to the library by her mother Faeza Harts and her late grandmother Maria Gambino.
Kiel is also mother of twins Aneeqa and Aneesa, as well as a proud grandmother to one grandson.
She completed her Library and Information correspondence studies at Technikon SA before its merger with Unisa.
“After completing my matric, I worked at a clothing store in Claremont and during my regular visits to the library and taking out books, my ex-colleague Moerida Hector told me about a job opening and I applied and started at Ocean View Library, on the 4th of July 1988,” she recalled.
During this time, she worked as a part-time assistant librarian for five years before she was promoted to a permanent position.
She initially intented to apply at the Navy or Airlines as an Air Hostess.
“I decided to stay and thanks to the City and their inhouse training and courses, I grew and equipped myself to be the passionate Librarian with 37 years’ service. We are trained in the organisation / library with primary roles to organise, manage, and make information accessible to library users,” she explained.
Kiel’s library duties include: curating and building book collections, developing educational programmes, managing databases, providing reference and information services to the community, crèche’s, schools and business partners.
She was also crowned the Super-hero of the year last year during the City’s public library awards.
Over time, Kiel says the role of libraries, especially in her community, has changed from being simply a place to borrow books to becoming a proactive educational centre for the youth, teens, adults and elderly.
However, the library still faces many challenges that have gone largely ignored in the past, such as leaking roofs and overdue repairs.
“Our small library’s hall was extended to the children’s section and we were promised a new extended hall in 2001, to accommodate all the amazing educational programmes, extra classes and safe holiday programmes, but sadly this did not happen.
“The leakage in our ceiling due to roof problems needs to be fixed and our library needs some major upgrades, painting and furniture for our different areas,” Kiel says.
One of the highlights as a librarian was inspiring a young boy to continue practising his reading despite his earlier desire to give up on his education.
“I was mentoring a Grade 3 learner, who wanted to give up on his education in primary school due to his reading problems. He later came to thank me in 2021 because he passed his matric and fulfilled his dream to join the navy.
“This year, a career highlight was seeing one of the literacy groups that I was coaching for a writing competition win first place,” she recalled.
Kiel stresses that more libraries should be upgraded and maintained.
“I feel that all libraries need to be upgraded and need to adapt with the technological and gamification times to remain the important links, especially in our underprivileged communities. I’d like to thank my community, colleagues and amazing managers. This journey has been the best part of my life growth,” she said.
Ocean View Public Library member Ulfah Davids says she is immensely proud of Kiel’s milestone achievement.
