Lawrence Vernon is a career librarian. Vernon was appointed to the National Library Service in 1956 and his mission has been to strengthen and expand the public libraries network in Belize. Today at the Leo Bradley Library, Vernon released a book he has written called A Narrative of Political Parties in Belize. Vernon spoke to the media following the press launch.
Lawrence Vernon - Librarian: "My intention as you mentioned was to put all the information and the political parties at that time into one book and I started out by providing this information to students and so I decided to document it for myself so that people don't have to come to ask diverse information and have it one book. I'm a career librarian and as such I feel that I should collect information, document it and disseminiate it and that is why today I think we are called information specialists rather than librarians. But the people who lived the political development from the 1950s I suppose some of them are still alive, can attest to the fact that the agitation at that time was great and one of the things that we missed today is that we don't have public meetings. Maybe the rostrum has disappeared from our culture and I believe the public meetings, maybe it was necessary at the time to get the people agitated more but I believe it's necessary today to inform the people of what is going on within the political parties. I know we have press conferences but it's not like en mass people gathering and listening to a politician on a rostrum."
The book is a testament to the author's persistent dedication since 1987 to ensuring that the contributions of all the political parties to Belize's development will not go unrecognized.
LOVEFM
Politics By The Book
He calls himself a historian who dabbles in history but Lawrence Vernon has done more than dabble with his latest book. It's called "A narrative of Political Parties in Belize" and it tracks the birth, rise - and some cases, the demise of more than 25 political parties in Belize's post-nationalist history.
The book was launched today at the Leo Bradley Library in Belize City where the 81 year old Vernon told us that the most important consideration was to stay true to the historical record - which he extracted from the daily newspapers of that era:
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"When you read the book you see that it is written with the fidelity of the librarian, the record keeper."
Lawrence Vernon, Author
"As you mentioned I am a career librarian and as such I feel that I should collect information, document it and disseminate it. The newspapers were my main source and as you said it was tedious to turn the pages of the Billboard and the Clarion and garner information from them. The book should be read by everybody who wants to know more about the political development of Belize and I purposely made it reader friendly so that the average person on the street could gather information from it. I included end notes and foot notes so that more explanation can be given about what is in the text."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"But if you could have been active in any era, which is the most exciting?"
Lawrence Vernon, Author
"I wasn't active, but I observed. I was born on 1937 and the nationalist movement started in the 1950s and so I was there to see the developments and hear the speeches and agitations that were going on at the time. So I have lived to see what is happening now and to compare it. The two mass parties, the philosophies are the same, but I would like to see some more unity for the development of the country. The party should become more united and have more dialogue."
The book is available widely and sells for thirty dollars. His next - almost completed book - will be a biography of Phillip Goldson.
Channel 7