The Press THURSDAY, JULY 13, 1933. Christchurch Libraries.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20906, 13 July 1933, Page 8

The Press THURSDAY, JULY 13, 1933. Christchurch Libraries.

Mr E. J. Howard, in a speech at the reopening of the Spreydon library reported in " The Press" yesterday, made some thoughtful and useful suggestions for coordinating the work of libraries in the Christchurch area. If number is any guide, Christchurch is well served by libraries. Besides the Canterbury Public Library, maintained by the Canterbury College Board of Governors, there are nine suburban libraries subsidised by the Christchurch City Council, one subsidised by the Riccarton Borough Council, two subsidised by the Sumner Borough Council, and one subsidised by the New Brighton Borough Council. But in this profusion there is weakness as well as strength. Too much attention has been paid to the needs of each locality and too little attention to the needs of the town as a whole. It is deplorable, for instance, that even in the Canterbury Public Library the reference section should be miserably inadequate. What is required is a pooling of resources; and if Mr Howard's scheme were adopted this end would be achieved without any restriction of the usefulness of the suburban libraries. The main library would act as a "supply ship" for the subsidiary libraries, thus enabling the range of literature available in the city to be greatly increased. As Mr Howard points out, a desirable first step would be the transfer of the Canterbury Public Library to municipal control, a step which is on other grounds as well. If, however, the difficulties in the way of effecting this change prove for the moment insuperable, there seems no reason why a conference of the various library authorities should not adopt Mr Howard's scheme in a modified form. It should be added that in Auckland a coordinated library system has been in successful operation for many years.