During the last part of 2003 and the first part of 2004, Jaco and Marietjie Swart realised there's a chance that the Christchurch City Libraries might consider having Afrikaans on the shelves - subject to sufficient interest from readers to make use of the service. The website AfrikaansinChristchurch.org.nz had it's origin from this campaign, when Jaco and Marietjie Swart performed surveys via the website, to enable them to do research and write a report on "The Need for Afrikaans Media in the Christchurch City Library".

We used the site to promote concerts - mainly in Afrikaans - in Christchurch: Jannie du Toit and Christa Steyn in 2003, Danie Niehaus in 2004, and Lucas and Monica Maree in 2006. These artists were guest of The Afrikaans Club of NZ

The "Canterbury Kleuters" initiative (a group of Afrikaans toddlers and their mums whom meet for play-time and chat-time in Afrikaans) also developed through this website.

Towards the end of 2004 we received an answer from the library that the Afrikaans speaking community was not yet large enough to justify an Afrikaans collection.

After the statistics for the 2006 census were released, we requested that the library reconsider an Afrikaans collection as the census showed that much more Afrikaans speaking people made Christchurch their home since the previous census. The draft letter was proof read by the Afrikaans Club and Rosanne Hawarden from SINZASA and their feedback and suggestions was incorporated.

During November 2007 we heard that the library approved in principle the setting up of an Afrikaans collection in the library but that it would take some time set up the new collection. Furthermore, they wanted to ensure that there's an established need in our community for these resources and they needed current data about people who would access such a collection. We asked for feedback on our website and gave the feedback to the library - the respondents needed to give feedback on how they would benefit from this collection and how it would meet their needs. The respondents also had to give feedback on what they wanted in the collection. The feedback were passed on to the library.

The long awaited collection was launched on 25 June 2008 and we want to thank everyone who took part in it.

Marietjie Swart