CHILD USERS OF LIBRARY

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28321, 5 July 1957, Page 10

CHILD USERS OF LIBRARY

Members Outside City Charged

“As you live outside the city of Christchurch rating area and do not contribute to the upkeep of the Canterbury Public Library through rates, the City Council now finds it necessary to charge your children for the use of the library,” says a circular now being taken hoihe by. child members to parents who live beyond the city limits. The annual charge will be 5s a family, irrespective of the number. This comes after a recommendation of the library committee, adopted by the council, that only city ratepayers and residents should be admitted to non-sub-scribing membership. “This means that persons not qualifying as city borrowers would have to become subscribing members, while city borrowers (by virtue of the fact that the city spends upwards of £30,000 a year out of rate-derived moneys on the library) would continue to have the option of choosing either form of membership,” said the report.

On the advice of the city solicitors, the committee sought the approval of the trustees of the various endowments for the proposed change and the Canterbury University College Council and the Gammack Trust agreed.

Applied to Adults The City Librarian (Mr R. N. O’Reilly) said yesterday that the decision had been applied to adults outside the city some weeks ago, but the position concerning children had been reviewed. The original report allowed non-subscribing membership to non-city students of secondary schools, business colleges, the Teachers’ College, and Canterbury College, because their demand was largely educational, but for other children under 19 years of age (outside the city) half the adult rate was to be charged. This still applied.

The library committee had now agreed to interpret that clause as naif the adult rate for each family of children, Mr O’Reilly said. This took cognisance of possible hardship to large families and that the institution was founded as the “Canterbury” Public Library.

Questioned about numbers affected, Mr O’Reilly said that about a fifth of the registered adult members lived beyond the city limits and a slightly higher proportion of the junior and intermediate members.

The Canterbury Public Library’s new terms for these outlying residents were still more liberal than any other local body library in the Dominion, Mr O’Reilly said. Auckland non-city members paid £1 subscription, plus book rentals. The charge for non-city members in Christchurch was still not equivalent to the contribution they would make to the library if they were paying city rates.