Improvements For Public Library

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32016, 17 June 1969, Page 16

Improvements For Public Library

Development of the Canterbury Publie Library in the present financial year, including a mezzanine floor, additional staff and a mobile service for areas not already served was approved by the City Council last evening, .. .

The only possible extension within the present building appeared to be a mezzanine floor at the west end' of the lending division, the library committee said. This would provide shelving for about 10,000 books and ease the congestion in the main lending area. The cost was estimated at $5956.

Allowance was made in the estimates for the appointment of two more assistants as soon as possible, and a third towards the end of the financial year when more staff accommodation became available in the children’s library. This was estimated to cost about $2OOO this year. Many areas of the library were often unsupervised because of lack of staff and this encouraged pilfering and mutilation of books and periodicals, the committee

said. Mutilation was reaching serious proportions. Whole sections had been sliced out of almost new reference books. The council also agreed to install photocopying facilities at the library. The committee.. said libraries which had put in the equipment had found a ready demand from users who were happy to pay 10 cents a page. At the Wellington Public Library 250 copies a week were handled. The provision of copying facilities had lowered the incidence of mutilation and theft in libraries. As mutilation occurred most frequently in reference works such as expensive encyclopaedias and irreplaceable volumes of periodicals, anything that helped to prevent it was worth serious consideration.