MORE SPACIOUS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1934, Page 5

MORE SPACIOUS.

NATIONAL LIBRARY. REFERENCE AND RESEARCH. PARLIAMENTARY EXTENSIONS (By Telegraph.—Special to " Star.") WELLINGTON, this day. By taking in the rooms over the first floor to the old Parliament Buildings entrance, the Parliamentary Library obtains additional fireproof accommodation which is greatly needed for extension of its reference and research activities. A large attic in the main library building is also being 'utilised to overcome congestion, for there have been few changes in the building for many years. Parliament Library during recent years has become more and more open to the serious reader who is not a member of the Legislature. These privileges were once curtailed during the session, but arrangements were made, which will be greatly facilitated by the extensions in progress, enabling reference and research work by the public to continue without interruption. Recess privilege holders total over 1200, the number having doubled during the last two years. The additional rooms will enable the New Zealand section to be adequately housed, instead of being confined to cases crammed, at present, on a staircase landing. Fiction, which occupies a comparatively small space, but has a high turnover among members of Parliament, will be placed in another of the new rooms, and accommodation also provided for cataloguing. Valuable Records. The library contains a very comprehensive collection of Parliamentary and other official papers relating to the whole Empire and many other parts of the world, and these records will occupy the new space available in the top floor. jr 0 r the research worker interested in

of good things. It possesses, for instance, between 400 and 500 volumes of the Provincial Council records, only full and complete sets in the Dominion. Early history is also there in ample supply in the bound volumes of the newspapers. These have to be stored on racks in an extensive cellar, but they are taken into more suitable surroundings when needed for reference. The Parliamentary Librarian, Dr. Scholelield, is preparing a consolidated catalogue of all the newspaper files held in the public libraries of the Dominion, so that seekers after news of any period or place may know in what library they will secure the most useful records. Parliament Library will be found to be most complete in this respect. It has many files of newspapers which long since ceased publication, including the "Albertland Gazette," first published at sea in 1802, and continued in the North Auckland settlement until 1804.

New Zealand History. Many phases of New Zealand history aro detailed in pamphlets, of which the library has hundreds of volumes, carefully indexed. It binds every New Zealand pamphlet it can secure. As for its Parliamentary records, its House of Commons official journals go back to pre-Victorian times, while the New Zealand Gazettes are complete from 1840, when New Ulster and New Munster were the official titles of North and South Islands respectively.

And the institution has a wide range in the sciences, biography, history and travels. The purchase of the Sinai Codex by the British Museum has aroused interest in' that valuable document. Parliament Library has had a photographic copy of it since 1911. The library has become a truly national institution for reference and research, and less and less the exclusive preserve of the legislator.