Museum and Library

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21647, 4 December 1935, Page 10

Museum and Library

At its meeting on Monday night the Christchurch City Council passed unanimously a motion moved by Cr. Guthrie calling for a conference with the Canterbury University College Council " with the object of reorganising "the finance and control of the Canterbury " Public Library and the Canterbury Museum." The importance of this resolution lies less in what it says than in what it implies. The City Council has affirmed, in so many words, that the present control and financing of these institutions have prevented them from filling the requirements 6f the city and the province. Further than that, the City Council has virtu"ally admitted that it has a duty to help them financially and to assume some of the responsibility for controlling them. With this attitude the public will be heartily in accord. It is only necessary to read Cr. Guthrie's account ■of what other cities are paying out of local rates towards the upkeep of libraries to realise how backward Christchurch has been. Auckland, for instance, provides about £13,000 for 10 libraries; the Canterbury Public Library has at present an income of £ 3000 a year and the City Council pays about £6OO a year in subsidies to the suburban libraries. It is not only in respect of finance that present library arrangements in Christchurch are inadequate. Because the main library is controlled by the Canterbury College Council and the suburban libraries left independent, no effort has been made to create a centralised library system such as exists in Auckland and Wellington. The result of this lack of system is that there is unnecessary duplication in the buying of books and that there is little opportunity for the proper training of staffs. The plight of the Canterbury Museum, once the best in the southern hemisphere and now inferior to the museums in the other three large New Zealand centres, needs/no emphasis. It has been brought before the public by its own observation, by the report prepared two years ago by a representative of the Carnegie Corporation, and by statements made on behalf of the Canterbury College Council. The City Council's resolution means, or should mean, that the representatives of the citizens of ChristchurCh have realised and accepted their responsibilities in the matter and that what obstacles remain in the way of reorganising the museum and the library are merely administrative details.