The most important person in Dar

That title is not meant as a joke. Anyone who has travelled enough to compare Tanzania with other countries will agree that the most striking feature here, as one drives or walks the streets, is the number of kids or adolescents or young adults who are going to school, or college or university - anything to get an education. Literacy is universal here, whereas in Europe it took two thousand years. The most significant people here are those who emphasized the need for this literacy (Julius Nyerere the foremost) and those who continue to push it, as does Dr. Alli at the national library of Tanzania.

Dr. Alli Abushiri Shomari Mcharazo is director general of the Tanzania Library Services Board, a person of many qualifications and much experience, as university lecturer (London, UK), researcher in human resources (Tanzania) chief librarian (UCLAS, Muhimbili and DSM) and author, with 34 published works. As if this were not enough to keep him occupied he is also a member of several significant boards and educational projects, and a consultant for several important bodies.

When he was kind enough to grant me an interview in his office he told me that from childhood he had been consumed by a great love for books. This is uncommon in any country but particularly so in this one, where almost all information comes by word of mouth and oratory is a much respected gift.

Dr. Alli was born in Tanga in 1959 where his parents were resident, his mother (only 16 when she bore him) originally from Lindi, and his father's people had a centuries old feeling for the outer world - which seems to this writer to be vital to explaining Dr. Alli's outlook. However he was brought up by his maternal grandmother in a village miles from urban facilities, where life was quite tough but he lived in a group, the school was congenial. In 1976 he began at Kinondoni Secondary School in Dar es Salaam - although glad to be continuing at school the separation from his grandmother was experienced as traumatic. However he lived first with an uncle then with an aunt, and in 1979 left school to become store clerk with Riddoch Motors for a year, before finding a place in Tanzania library services. National Service was done at Makutopora, near Dodoma. There were field attachments in libraries to gain experience, first at Forodhani Secondary School in DSM, then in Mweka Wildlife College, Moshi, then at Acton High School and at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Continuing education, from 1991-94 he was at Ealing College of Further Education, but earned his MA and then his doctorate at Thames Valley University, also in London, was lecturer there up until 1997,when became principal librarian in Tanzania. From 2000 to 2004 he was librarian at the University College of Land and Architectural Studies, and from 2004 to 2007 at Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences.... and director general in May 2007,chairman of the Tanzanian library association in 2008.

Dr. Ali believes that reading is so important because it is a form of communication - we can pass on information by means of a document. Moreover reading is an enriching experience. Libraries supply the tools for this with extra facilities to support that reading. This librarian took for his doctorate the subject: Aspects of distance education and its implication in informant provision.

From Dr. Ali's beliefs and my own, I recommend everyone in Dar es Salaam to become a member of the national library and to spend much time there, and I recommend the government to invest in public libraries, build them in all centres of population.

From 2000 to 2004 he was librarian at the University College of Land and Architectural Studies, and from 2004 to 2007 at Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences.