Q & A with Honorary Chair for Library and Information Week 2018 Mr. Giovanni St Omer...

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LIBRARIES AND INFORMATION PROFESSIONALS - ST LUCIA·THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018

Q: Thank you for serving as the Honorary Chair for National Library and Information Week 2018. Can you tell us what it means to you?

I think this is a fabulous thing. I was thrilled. I loved reading as a child and The Central Library was like a second home for me. Actually, I have a book that I kept from the library for the past thirty years and it is still home. I will bring this book to the opening of National Library Week 2018 for everyone to see. It is in very good condition.

Q: Tell me about yourself? Who is Giovanni?

I was born in 1965 and grew up living in Central Castries in the CDC area, when it was the center of action in Saint Lucia. I am also the son of the late Sir Dunstan St, Omer, so my household was surrounded by artists throughout my younger life. My mom worked in the higher echelons of the government service for many years and worked for the late Sir John Compton as his personal assistant. She was the strength of the family when my father spent his time doing great things in the arts.

Q: What is your profession?

I’m a consultant but I worked for the government for many years as a communication officer and communications specialist. I eventually became a visual communications consultant. This means that that I would advise organisations or companies and businesses on exactly how to network so that they could enhance not just their product but their visibility and their marketability. Apart from being a marketing specialist and a project development specialist, I’m a carnival artist. I have been involved in carnival for almost thirty years and I also use carnival to make statements. I’m a political activist and I use carnival as my pallete. In other words, I don’t make normal costumes I make costumes that make a statement whether it be a political statement or economic statement.

Q: What influenced your work? How did you get started?

I grew up idolising my mom and dad and wanting to do something great like them like most children do. I decided I wanted to become an artist but a different type of artist. An artist that would help develop the community, not just an artist to make money, not just an artist like others who want to create to prove themselves. I wanted to use the arts to develop my people, the country and the nation using creativity. I studied at four different universities. I studied in Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and England and I pursued my masters in England. I majored in Mass Communications, Visual communications, Project Development and I also specialised in Fine Art and Communication of Graphics. I wanted to enhance what we are trying to do in this country. Look at how communications has literally taken over the world. If you want to create markets for anything now, you must use the internet, you have to use communications you must use that networking and a lot of artists have not done that. A lot of our professionals have not done that or they don’t have the business savvy to do so. I figured if I specialised in these areas I’m able to help them and that’s what I have always wanted to do; to use my talent to help my country grow. So unlike other artists who were trying to grow themselves I wanted to help my country using my talent and in doing so I became popular. So in other words when you do selfless acts, it comes back to you. So that’s what I do.

Q: This year’s National Library and Information Week theme is Libraries and Information Centers: Collaboratively engaging communities. How do you feel today’s libraries and information centers allow people of all ages and backgrounds to unlock their full potential and help develop their communities?

Inspiration is everything. As a young person, as an adult, as an individual, as long as you are able to inspire someone, you’ve done the job. A library’s job is to inspire, to instigate and to educate. However, I prefer to use the word

“inspiration”. A Library has to become a source of inspiration to everyone. We have to now start inspiring people and if you are able to inspire people there is hope and this is something we must strive to give others. I grew up in the 70s and the society was a friendlier one. In this society, there is a lot of backbiting so inspiring others is important. We now have to start finding creative ways to do so without relying on government and other organisations but instead relying on the simple things to inspire our people to develop in our society. This is where the librarian comes in. The librarian is a powerful tutor; an educator and has to be an inspiration.

Q: What do libraries and information centers mean to you? What role do they play in your career?

I studied everything. Every time I began any project I did my research. Sadly enough, in my day, there was no internet at that time so I used the library a lot as a child and this is where I learnt a lot of information. I was able to get my scholarships for school because I was very deeply involved in history and reading. Actually, when The University of the West indies honoured the late Sir Rex Nettleford, I completed their history programme and came out on top. I was so deeply entrenched in understanding my region and Caribbean Studies was something I really loved.

Q: Through your participation as a “friend of the public Library” you are helping to showcase the value of community support in securing the survival of libraries. What role do you think libraries, librarians and other information workers and centers need to play in this fight?

I’ve met too many young people that have recently graduated from school yet cannot explain themselves or relay information properly. This is where librarians come in because teachers can only do so much. Libraries should be interactive. It’s not just having internet on a computer but finding exciting ways of drawing young people back into libraries.

So I figure this is an opportunity for me to share my knowledge and what I have seen internationally so that maybe I could influence the librarians in St. Lucia to think about creating that interactive approach. Its about drawing people back into reading, back into the libraries again. With a well-read society you have an educated society that could actually develop. If our young people start reading again there is hope for St. Lucia. Could you imagine we have young people graduating from secondary schools who cannot communicate their thoughts with others? Who cannot speak properly? If they were drawn into this library society their language would be a weapon; it would be something in our development…[that] we are searching for St. Lucia.

So my purpose as honorary chair is to help librarians evolve like the metropolitan world rather than staying in the dark ages. So that is my intention and I am excited about it because there is so much I want to say and I’m hoping that they listen. We have to find creative ways of drawing people back into the libraries and we cannot save the society if we do not have an educated society.

We need to have a reading society. It’s not just the teachers. The teachers have their role but the libraries have their role as well. We have to draw people into reading again and studying and understanding society and that means of communicating with other people and sharing that information as we grow. This will develop the geniuses of the world and help develop new readers. That is what I want, that is what I want to draw their attention to.

I am also an activist. I believe that the librarians within the region need to focus heavily on educating themselves [so] as to be more creative in that interaction with the community. First off you have to excite yourself about it- if as a librarian you’re not excited about what you’re going to do, you’re not going to be successful. You have to excite people about what you want them to get involved in. When they see that you are putting the effort into it, you are going to succeed eventually. It won’t take place overnight but you must find creative methods to do so. Librarians, friends of the library, people who are into reading and who love to read and are participating in this effort, have to draw the attention to this new world order. We are in a technological age; we have to draw the libraries into that age. We have to make it more exciting for young people, make it more exciting for adults to come to the library again and that’s our role at this point. That is YOUR role. Your role is no longer a librarian sitting and telling people be quiet- you are now an activist for society. You are building societies – the librarian is going to educate the community. As a librarian wherever you are, wherever you are from, your duty is to educate that part of the society using your library which is the weapon. So it is no longer the school’s job alone.

Q: How best do you think library and information centers can serve the development of arts and culture in Saint Lucia?

A library also has to be like a museum with paintings and portraits. You must educate people so that everything they see they must understand why it is there. So as an artist, as the lay person, going into any organisation or any setting, you want to understand where is what and what is there and why is it there, especially a library. So as an artist if I see a piece of work you must educate me on that piece of work, you must tell me who did this, why they did it, why is it in the library what is the significance of that. The research info [sic] has to be readily available right there at your fingertips so that upon leaving the library, anyone would understand what it is about. Even if you were to spend 5 minutes in the library and you look at one image, you must understand and you must be able to take something out of that library with you. You must come out with something.

The library needs to be a place where you excite people about learning, about knowledge, research, information and history. You must excite them about it. We no longer live in the dark ages where you go to the library to get books to read that you can’t afford to buy. This is what we used it for as children. We have to assist the education system which is lacking by creating interactive learning and this is where librarians come in. Librarians must help us create a fantastic new society and that’s my take on it.

I would like to create an interactive visual sensation in the library. This would mean using a section of the library and create a 3 dimensional mock up against a wall featuring the history of the Caribbean. This would draw people’s attention to the library and it would be something that schools would be encouraging the students to see. We do not have a museum in Saint Lucia or a national space where we have all our artefacts, but if we have a library at a central location in St. Lucia we can use this setting to attract people.

Q: What are you currently working on?

I am working towards St. Lucian Carnival and Crop Over in Barbados, as well as assisting in the efforts to rebuild the Folk Research Center which was recently destroyed by fire. Currently, I am creating an altar piece at St Beneditcs in Morne Fortune. In the Caribbean, we are lost in the dark ages in a lot of ways. As a religious artist, I am inspired by creativity. I want the churches to get excited about inspiring society, inspiring young people. This is because people no longer want to simply walk into a church anymore and just sit and listen. They want you to excite them, they want you to inspire them and to give them hope.

I want to first draw you into the church so I found that instead of just doing the normal religious art I decided to do more dynamic pieces. By doing so, people start to talk about these pieces and they want to come to the church to see what I have done and by doing that I draw them in. I’ve done my duty and it is the church’s duty to keep them. I am excited about these things.