Lethibelane photo

Mr. Motlalepula Lethibelane

Director

Mr. Lethibelane pursued a Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) in 2005-2007 at the University of Botswana. He also studied a Bachelor of Library and Information Studies (BLIS) from 2000-2003. In 1996 to 1998, he went to further his studies at the University of Botswana to pursue a Diploma in Library and Information Studies (DLIS). He went to Moshoeshoe II High school in 1987, acquired a second class in Junior Certificate (JC) and a third class in Cambridge Overseas School Leaving Certificate (COSC) in 1991. He started his primary school in 1980 at St Louis Primary School and obtained first class pass in 1986.

He started working for the Ministry of Tourism, Sports and Culture in 1992 as a Library Assistant. He was promoted in 1999 to the position of Assistant Librarian and later transferred on promotion to the position of Librarian in the same year to the Ministry of Environment, Gender and Youth Affairs. The restructuring of Ministries resulted in among others the emergence of Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture in which Mr Lethibelane worked from 2004-2005. He started working for the National University of Lesotho in 2008 until 2012 as a Documentalist. He also worked as a part-time Lecturer for the National University of Lesotho. The three courses that he taught are Library and Information Centre Management, Readership and Children's Literature and Marketing of Information Services.

In 2012 again, he left the National University of Lesotho to work as a Director of State Library and Archives in the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture. Mr. Lethibelane was appointed to the position of Deputy Principal Secretary (DPS) in an acting capacity from May 2016 to September 2017, a period of a year and four months. He is acting again from February 2022 until the substantive holder of this position is available. In 2014, he started the process of providing International Standard Serial Numbers (ISSNs) to the periodicals of Lesotho. As the name implies it is a series of international numbers allocated to the public documents and are unique to each document and to each country. This numbers predicates the assignment of barcodes and indeed without them, periodicals such as newspapers, magazines and others cannot be assigned the barcodes. This therefore must clarify their importance (ISSNs) in enabling trade of our magazines both locally and globally. Almost all our local Newspapers and Magazines have been provided with such numbers. The State Library and Archives is the National Focal Point of the International Standard Serial Numbers (ISSNs).

Mr. Lethibelane was nominated to participate in the induction of Honourable Ministers and later the Principal Secretaries in 2012. It is in this induction programmes where he was bringing to their attention, the centrality of records management and lately electronic records management in the administration, evidence and history of any country and organization. He was demonstrating a case in point how much our country is losing without proper investment in records management. It is in his time that we witnessed the continued collaboration of the State Library and Archives and the embassy of United States of America in issues of American Culture, Documents and access to education through the American Corner. We also witnessed another collaboration with Bangladeshi community in Lesotho with a Bangladeshi Corner.
This corner demonstrates the culture of Bangladesh and provides more knowledge Basotho, Bangladeshi community and all those with interest to Bangladeshi Culture. The Bangladeshi Corner was followed by the Indian Corner. All these corners prove the importance of collaboration and the possibility of a win-win result. The latest of all in the launch of Vodacom Insight Centre in which Vodacom Lesotho Foundation and The State Library and Archives collaborate to enable access to information in the formats that respond to the needs of the visually Impaired Persons. The collaboration between the State Library and Archives and Vodacom Lesotho Foundation came at the opportune time when the Kingdom of Lesotho has just ratified Marrakesh Treaty in which the countries of the world commit themselves to providing services to the visually impaired persons in the accessible formats