When most of us think of library staff, the general consensus would probably be they are unassuming, worldly types.
That can be said for Oamaru Library manager Philip van Zijl (66).
You might not think it to look at him, but the South African native went through many traumatic experiences while part of the South African Army, which would have a profound impact on his life from then on.
Born near the city of Johannesburg in 1952, Mr van Zijl recalled his family was often on the move.
"We moved around a bit. My dad was a civil servant. We moved to Cape Town briefly but I sort of grew up in a little place called George, which is not so little anymore. It’s about five hours by road north of Cape Town, close to the coast. After five years there we did move to Cape Town, where I basically grew up."
He secured employment shortly afterwards in his former stomping ground.
"I worked as a teacher and librarian at a white school in Cape Town that was part of the apartheid education system. Schools weren’t mixed then. There were some Catholic schools that were mixed, but none of the government schools."
Mr van Zijl worked at the school for five years and during that time, in 1977, he was conscripted into the South African Army when in his mid-20s, then again in 1980.
He did not know it at the time, but it was an experience that would change his life.He fought in the South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence and in South Africa, the Angolan Bush War. It raged for 24 years between 1966 and 1990.
"I was posted up to the north of Namibia in the so-called Bush War against what were known as terrorists, mostly soldiers from the ANC’s [African National Congress] military wing. Most of the so-called enemy was the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia, part of the South West African People’s Organisation.
"We were in an area that didn’t have a lot of exposure to war as we know it, but the second time was completely different. I came out of that quite traumatised. We were there because we were called up and had a choice either to be incarcerated ourselves for a minimum of I think five years in a detention barracks in the army — we’d all heard horror stories of what happened to traitors — or to be deployed in the Bush War.
"I came back to the school system disillusioned because as part of the deployment there were a lot of young 17 and 18-year-olds and they had no idea who these communists were that we were supposedly keeping out and fighting against."
Mr van Zijl said his military experience led to a "shift in my own conscience."
"I was always liberal politically, but its the first time I suppose I would have been called a radical because I felt I couldn’t be neutral anymore. Some of it was guilt and some of it was a sense of social justice."
Following his military service he worked extensively around South Africa at libraries and educational institutions in various roles, including in Natal, where he was head-hunted for his skills in developing library spaces.
Comfortable in his professional life, Mr van Zijl became involved with the the United Democratic Front, part of the ANC.
The group held huge demonstrations and marches against the government regularly, which he said put "a lot of pressure" on it.
It was during that time Mr van Zijl, who was heavily involved with the ANC and its internal structures, attracted unwanted attention.
"I obviously became known to the security police and I had at least one close shave, being arrested for aiding and abetting a banned organisation, which was the ANC, of course.
"I had a heads-up that there was a planned assassination attempt on me, because I was seen by the structure as a traitor. I wasn’t supposed to be doing the things I was doing. At that point my youngest daughter was 18 months old and I needed to become safe."
Mr van Zijl left his job in the mid-1990s, sorted out his finances and ended up purchasing a restaurant in Durban that he named District 6.
He owned it for about two and a-half years before he sold up after he became sick of working 16 hour days.
"I needed a rest."
He felt he needed to leave South Africa and chose New Zealand, a place he had always wanted to visit.
"The reason I wanted to visit New Zealand was two-fold. One, I saw The Piano and said ‘I need to see bush like that for myself’, and the other thing was the stand New Zealand took against apartheid when the apparent main supporters were the United States and the UK in the 1980s and ’90s."
He ended up in Auckland in 1996, and was joined by his family a few months later.
After securing a job in Rotorua, where he helped design and plan the construction of a library at the Waiariki Institute of Technology, he shifted south to Dunedin, where he worked as library manager of Otago Polytechnic and the Dunedin College of Education.
"Part of that job was to design a new library, which I did after a trip to the Gold Coast to look at other examples with the architect. But, at that point the university merged with the college of education and I decided to take the redundancy because all of our positions were made redundant and we had to reapply for our jobs. At that point I saw it as an opportunity to look elsewhere."
After leaving the south Mr van Zijl spent 18 months in Taupo, before he saw his current job advertised in Oamaru about seven-and-a-half years ago.
The library has changed significantly under his leadership in terms of its look, layout and the services offered, which happened with last year’s refurbishment project.
"When I came here it was quite a traditional library with quite traditional and conventional philosophies. The first think I did was to recruit key people from the word go. We slowly started working to modernise the library and three years ago we put forward a business case to council, where we proposed a completely different philosophy because libraries have shifted from a transactional relationship. In other words, you issue books and DVDs.
"There’s always been life-long learning, that’s always been part of what libraries have done. It has become a lot more digital and people expect a relational relationship as opposed to a transactional relationship."
He was pleased with the final product and said it has allowed library staff to engage with the public as never before.
When not at the library, Mr van Zijl enjoyed spending time with family, and always made sure he found time for fishing and diving.
"I’m at peace here and that’s a wonderful thing," he said.
