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{
    "id": 631942,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/631942/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 342,
    "type": "other",
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    "content": "sciences and well versed in librarianship as a science. That person will ensure that the recommendations of the county library development committee are implemented. The person should also ensure that all the libraries in the county are managed in a proper and professional manner. This is one area this Bill has not addressed well. We shall make those amendments, so that we respect librarianship as a profession and set up the office of a county librarian, who could also act as a county curator. In other jurisdictions, you would find that due to limitation of resources, the person who takes on the role of a librarian sometimes can also play the role of a curator. They are two different things, but it is possible for both roles to be played by one person. The other matter that this Bill should have addressed, which I have not seen, is the definition of county and national library facilities. As I speak, all the libraries that have been established under the Kenya National Library Services Board Act are considered to be the property of the parastatal or body established by that Act. If we want to set up county library development committees at the county level, will they inherit certain libraries in those counties or will they start from scratch? What happens to the libraries that already exist in certain counties? For example, here in Nairobi, we have the headquarters of the National Library Service. They are putting up a magnificent building and headquarters. Would that headquarters automatically go to the county government? Could we look at a situation where we do a differentiation in a similar way we did with the health sector, where we designated some hospitals as national referral hospitals and devolved Level 4 hospitals and below to the counties? This is a fundamental issue that needs to be addressed because as we now take over the libraries as devolved functions. It would be very important that we identify the libraries that should automatically be handed over to the counties as well as identify libraries and information centres that cannot go to the counties and shall remain national Government supported libraries. That is another area that we need to look at. Madam Temporary Speaker, as we devolve and define the libraries to move from the national to the county governments, there will also be the question of staff members and how we will transfer staff who were previously paid by the KNLS. How will we push them to the counties so that counties take ownership of them? I come from a county where every other time that I meet the County Executive Committee (CEC) Members, they complain about the huge wage Bill. As a county with eight constituencies, we were unlucky or lucky to amalgamate or inherit seven different local authorities which came with a lot of overhead expenditure. The counties are already complaining about the number of people they have in their payrolls and the effect that has on their development expenditure. We need to have a very clear transition mechanism for the librarians and information professionals who are currently working for the KNLS for them to get to the county governments. In this, there needs to be a debate. We could look at what we have done with teaching service where teachers are still employed and administratively managed by a central Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and compare that with what we have done with doctors where they are now being managed administratively at the county level. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}