South African academic libraries as contributors to social justice and ubuntu through community engagement

The purpose of this article is to assess the role of academic libraries as social justice and ubuntu advocates, promoters and contributors within a community engagement framework. This was a qualitative study that utilised interviews with 20 library heads and 8 focus group discussions with librarians from South African university libraries to gather data. The findings reflect that South African academic libraries’ community engagement approaches can be grouped into several themes. These include contributions to quality education, health and wellness, work and employment, food security, addressing the digital divide, environmental concerns, equality and gender equality, the preservation of national heritage and food security. With regard to social justice, there were four themes that emerged from the participants’ narratives: (1) they stated that community engagement is a deliberate social justice action; (2) community engagement was associated with a contribution to the rights to education and information access, among others; (3) they pointed to the social-redress actions of their libraries as contributing to social justice; and (4) they associated community engagement with ubuntu, which they argued is itself a social justice concept. The findings support community engagement activities as a contribution to a socially just society and ubuntu. The results confirm the need for academic libraries (and universities in general) to go beyond their traditional role of teaching, learning and research support, and participate in community engagement not only as an expected social responsibility but also as a contribution to a socially just society and development. Based on the results, this article considers social justice and ubuntu as inherent to, and not an accidental notion of, community engagement.