About Us

Background and History

The Malawi Library Association (MALA) is a professional body established in 1976 to represent the interests of librarians, information scientists, records and archives personnel, documentalists and other information professionals in Malawi. MALA serves as a platform for networking, advocacy, and professional development, ensuring that library and information services in Malawi are recognized as critical to national development. Over the years, the Association has grown to include members from public, academic, special, school, research institute and parastatal libraries across the country. MALAs first President, who was being called chairperson that time was the late Mr Rodrick Mabomba and the first Secretary General was the late Mr Steve Mwiyeriwa, may their souls rest in peace.

Since then, MALA has made great strides in contributing to the development of the Library and Information profession locally and internationally. MALA has contributed to the development of this country through capacity building. The graduates of the MALA Certificate Course have been working in libraries for various sectors of the Country and they continue to do so. In addition, some of them have proceeded with their education at Mzuzu Universityand University of Malawi.MALA has been organising various engagements to ensure that members of the profession continue to share developments in the profession. We have also seen other institutions developing from the MALA and the LIS profession. For example, the Malawi Library and Information Consortium (MALICO) which plays a significant role of facilitating access to e-resources in this country. Another organisation that was established through MALA and MALICO is the Malawi Research and Education Network (MAREN). This organisation plays a critical role of providing Internet to most higher education institutions in this country.

Internationally, some of the LIS professionals have made presentations at the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) conferences. In Africa, MALA has enabled LIS professionals to present their ideas in various countries mostly under the Standing Conference for Eastern, Central and Southern Africa Library Associations (SCECSAL). MALA was awarded for hosting this regional conference three times that is in 1982, 1994 and 2014.