Library to close for big shift

Press, 29 October 1981, Page 14

Library to close for big shift

The Canterbury Public Library in Cambridge Terrace will close on the evening of December 24 for 17 days until the new library is opened on January 11. This will allow books to be shifted into the new library building at the corner of Oxford Terrace and Gloucester Street. Before Christmas books will be issued for long loans. Borrowers will be encouraged to take out as many books as they can, to make the shift easier, and to use the branch and mobile libraries. A shift to the new library could be started as soon as mid-December, with lessused stock moved first. Members of the Christchurch City Council’s cultural committee have been told that a fumigation of the old library to eradicate silverfish before the move had been ruled out. The City Librarian. Mr J. E. D. Stringleman. said there was “no real guarantee" that such a fumigation would work, and it could cost about $7OOO. It could also seriously slow the shitting of library stock. Mr Stringleman said the Health Department was looking for some other way to keep silverfish from getting into the new building. One

way might be to spray new shelves with an insecticide. Book sale The library will sell about 4000 unwanted books on November 7. Because of the shift, an unusual number of surplus books have been chosen for disposal, and other libraries do not want them. All adult books will be sold for 50c each, children’s books offered at 50c for two volumes. If the weather is fine the sale might be held outside the bindery, behind the relocatable library. Multi-cultural The committee’s chairman, Cr Louisa Crawley said that enough interest had been shown in a multi-cultural consultative committee to warrant such a group. An informal meeting of multi-cultural organisations and ethnic groups had included representatives of the Scottish Society, the Canterbury Hebrew Congregation, the Netherlands Society, the Canterbury Chinese Cultural Centre, the Waitaha Maori Council, the Japan Society, Samoan, Cook Islands and Tongan communities, the Austrian Society, Latin American and Chilean groups, the Vietnamese community, the Christchurch Spanish Club, and the Christchurch Indian Association.