InfoPro Home > Spotlight on International Librarians > Lynette Davis

Lynette Davis
A Proudly South African Librarian

Lynette Davis, a librarian at the Johannesburg Bar Library, is proudly South African. Her country just celebrated the tenth anniversary of its first democratic elections, an event that brought about many social and political changes in South African society. Many of these changes, including the establishment of a constitutional court, a new constitution, and a far-reaching Bill of Rights, have activated dramatic changes in the practice of law in South Africa. While the social and political fabric of the country has undergone transformation, South Africa is still a country that offers great natural beauty, wonderful wildlife, a fine climate and warm, hospitable people. 

Lynette's patrons have referred to her as the librarian emeritus - an apt description in light of the fact that she first encountered law librarianship in 1965. Prior to embarking on this career, Lynette earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and a postgraduate Higher Diploma in Librarianship; spent some time working in a public library and in the library at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her first encounter with law librarianship came while cataloging at the University, when she was asked to spend mornings in the Law Department library, watching over the collection of old Roman-Dutch books. While maintaining a dual role in cataloguing and law librarianship, Lynette completed a Master of Arts thesis cum laude on the cataloguing and classification of a South African legal collection. Eventually, she assumed a managerial position in the library of a large Johannesburg law firm, where she found the pace to be more stimulating than in academic circles.

After nine years in private practice, Lynette returned to the University of the Witwatersrand to lecture to library students. However, the legal environment beckoned again in 1983, when she accepted a position as chief librarian of the Johannesburg Bar Library, where you will find her to this day. The library contains about 37,000 volumes and serves 600 Johannesburg advocates. Like the United Kingdom, South Africa has a divided profession of advocates and attorneys who operate distinctly from one another. Just last year, Lynette decided to hand over many of her duties to a new chief librarian, but she remains involved with queries, technical services and a new branch library in a financial area of greater Johannesburg.

Lynette has seen many changes over the years in the provision of effective information services. For example, she witnessed the advent of the plain paper copier and the fax machine -- two revolutionary inventions that changed the way people communicate and share information. The effects of this 'revolution' continue today, with the proliferation of global Internet access and email connections. Lynette believes that efficient use of information services requires an awareness of both local and worldwide developments -- a task made easier with the help of modern-day methods of communication. A more subtle change that Lynette has observed in her career was the arrival of comprehensive access tools to South African legislation, government gazettes and law reports. She believes that electronic tools are invaluable to effective information retrieval, but should be viewed as a complement to, rather than a replacement of, other reference sources. The Internet and CDs provide useful extra backup to hardcopies already possessed by the library system but hardcopy subscriptions have not been cancelled. One must be certain that information found on the Internet is from a reliable source. 

While technology has streamlined many of the tasks that once could be performed only by human hands, Lynette firmly believes that there is no substitute for the knowledge and expertise of the skillful law librarian. To this end, she maintains membership status in numerous professional organizations, including IALL, AALL and BIALL. In 1976, she and two colleagues founded the Organization of South African Law Libraries (OSALL), of which she has been made the first (and only) honorary member in recognition of her services to OSALL and the local law library community. 

Lynette welcomes those challenging research tasks where the help of a living and breathing librarian is indispensable. For example, one aspect of South African legal research utilizes old and rare books. Since the common law is Roman-Dutch, one may be accessing very old sources for totally practical purposes. Lynette finds this type of research challenging because of the range and time-span of materials involved. She may be asked for the latest legislation and then immediately thereafter for a January 1720 court decision from the Netherlands.

One of Lynette's favorite pastimes involves vacationing with her husband to places both near and far. She has traveled extensively abroad in the past; however, the poor exchange rate for South Africans makes this an expensive option at the present time. Fortunately, her home country offers some rich and enticing travel opportunities, such as the beautiful mountain areas on the eastern side of South Africa. These parts include the Drakensberg, which has been declared a world heritage site both for its wealth of primitive rock art and its scenic splendor. While the exchange rate may prohibit Lynette from visiting other areas of the world, it does make it easier for others to visit South Africa and see for themselves why Lynette is proud to call it 'home.' 

Back to Top >>