IMPORTING OF BOOKS

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23001, 22 April 1940, Page 7

IMPORTING OF BOOKS

SUPPLIES FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES BUREAU A SATISFACTORY SOLUTION A satisfactory solution of the*problem of importing books for public libraries has been found in thei establishment of a central bureau .formed to recommend special import licences, according to a statement made, in the official bulletin of the New -Zealand Library Association. “The bureau appeared and *still appears a practical necessity,” thb article states. “The alternatives wofild have been simply to submit to thie 50 per cent, restriction on the importing of books, which might have had tragic consequences for our libraries, or else to ask the Government to remove the restriction from public libraries altogether. In view of the stealing funds situation at the moment, it is very unlikely that the Government would have agreed to issue unconditional special licences to libraries Moreover, we cannot honestly claim |that unconditional special lienees would be used always and everywhere for the importation of books and periodicals of a type for which there is| a case for favoured ’treatment. “Although to some the bureau, located as it is in «a Government department, may seem, and particularly in war time, suspiciously like a censorship organisation, the fact Temains that under it, with the extra latitude which, faced with the necessity for conserving sterling, the Government is allowing to libraries, more books will actually reach the shelves than could otherwise have been bonjght. If there was any lack of wisdonr in the council’s approach to the G/overnment, it was in not suggesting < a completely disinterested and ntpi-Govemment tribunal, and even here It is problematical whether such a proposal would have proved workable. A tribunal of this nature would hajve been extremely hard to constitute and would moreover have cost a, good deal of money to maintain. She impartiality of the bureau is ensjured by ah advisory committee c composed of. two public library representatives and the liaison officer betweeii the association and the Country Library Service. " “Conference and douncil have both shown that they realifee that the danger of the bureau being iused for the purpose of censorship isj remote, and that the arrangement that was come to is the best that could lhave been arrived at in the circumstances. It does ensure that libraries can buy up to the normal level insteaid of only half as much as in the pastL”