Angela Wachuka and Wanjiku Koinange are ‘can do’ characters who have given up their jobs to form the Book Bunk Trust. They have a strong vision for transforming the McMillan Memorial Library – the city’s oldest library and for the exclusive use of (white) Europeans until opening its doors to everyone in 1958 – into a community space where everyone would be welcome and see themselves represented in the shelves which are currently dusty and full of titles purchased before Kenya’s independence in 1963.
The filming takes place over eight years (2017–2024). There are many setbacks, the least of which is Covid.
Structurally, the documentary’s ambition and raw material is very promising. The main library building is crumbling and unloved (post-independence, there was very little investment). The two satellite branches that they also control in Kaloleni and Makadara will take less work to turn around. The pair’s initial five-year contract is quickly at odds with the hard-to-navigate local government bureaucracy which is very slow and driven by political ambition rather than public service delivery. The team of librarians – who spend much of the film underlining that they are professional – are not on board with the women’s vision and appear to be actively working against it. Personal struggles threaten to dampen energy levels too.
The longitudinal study shows a build-up of culture clashes. The librarians openly speak in front of the cameras against Angela and Wanjiku’s plans. International funding is enthusiastically secured on the condition that a much longer lease is agreed with the local government. A royal visit brings publicity, but also echoes the colonial history that the project is trying to expurgate. After years of contact, the main political patron can still not remember Angela and Wanjiku’s names: this lack of attention to detail rather satisfyingly foreshadows her political downfall.
Yet there’s another cultural clash that seems to be allowed to remain under the carpet and unexplored by directors Maia Lekow and Christopher King. The cycle of affluent fund-raising galas and international aid suggests that decolonisation is easier to achieve than flattening class structures. The voices of some ordinary ‘library users’ are heard, but the very people and communities that the renovation projects are supposed to be benefitting aren’t allowed to become the heart of this tale.
As a lover of libraries – I’d happily work and/or live in one! – the scenes showing the refurbished satellite libraries full of young children and families are heart-warming. The power of archive is demonstrated powerfully in a later scene where the pair’s political nous has developed to the point that they are learning to ‘play’ the local political figures to move the project forwards.
However, some of the strings that have been threaded throughout the documentary’s narrative are left unsatisfyingly loose. The chief librarian confidently declares that he is “indispensable” … which is usually a sign that he’ll be forced to resign in about 10 minutes time. By the end of the film, he’s neither eating humble pie nor a fulsome partner in the project. The debate over how to classify the non-fiction books is never resolved. (The Dewey Decimal Classification system first devised in 1876 has a very American/European bias, so books about American and European literature occupy 810-889, with the rest of the world squeezed into 890-899, and all of Africa under 896. Why go to all the bother of revitalising the balance of books on the shelves if the non-fictional classification system will systemically devalue African titles.)
How To Build A Library successfully charts the ups and downs of managing a large project that has the potential to change lives. Material that critiques wider issues – the shocking failure of Kenyan public officials post-independence, and the reality of political priorities rarely having room for altruism – comes across as being timid in tone, and could have been more fully powerfully integrated into the narrative to show the parallels between the library project and Kenya in general. Scenes of street protests from 2024 (which continue to be in the news this week) are tacked on, although powerfully echo earlier scenes of protests around Kenya’s independence.
The Docs Ireland festival of international documentary film continues until Sunday 29 June. There’s still time to check out a range of fabulous screenings.
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