The University of the Free State’s Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Jonathan Jansen’s book Knowledge in the Blood: Confronting Race and the Apartheid Past has been listed among the best 31 books of 2009 by the Library Journal.

In its listing the journal says of the book: “This is the story of how commitment to enlightened pedagogical principles can bring divergent populations – the historically dominant and the historically victimized – into engagement.”

It refers to the time when Prof. Jansen became the first black dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria in 2000, where he administered a white-majority student body in an officially Afrikaans-speaking institution.

The Library Journal is the oldest and most respected publication covering the library field. Considered to be the “bible” of the library world, the journal is read by over 100 000 library directors, administrators, and staff in public, academic, and special libraries.

It is the single-most comprehensive publication for librarians, with groundbreaking features and analytical news reports covering technology, management, policy and other professional concerns. Its hefty review sections evaluate nearly 7 000 books annually, along with hundreds of audio books, videos, databases, web sites and systems that libraries buy.