NEWSPAPER READERS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 55, 13 September 1928, Page 10

NEWSPAPER READERS

(To the Editor.) Sir,—ln your columns of to-day's issue i. read with amazement the proposal of the Library Committee to do away with tho newsroom at the Central Library. The publications in this room, representing not only all parts of the Dominion, but the chief cities of Australia and the Eng-lish-speaking world, arc read daily by citizens of Wellington, as well as by many a traveller, and tho news-hungry stranger within our gates. To many this is the only reliable and comparative source of reference concerning finance, shipping and commerce, sport, religion, music, current literature, drama, art, and legal matters, etc., culled from the brains of the thinking men and leaders of the clay. Possibly members of the Library Committee are not aware of the extent of public patronage. As a frequent reader, the writer has noticed men, women, and often mere lads, from all classes of the community, eagerly seeking the daily or illustrated papers, especially _ after the arrival of an Australian or 'Frisco mail steamer; and surely it is not the mere luxury of so shabby and unattractive an apartment, boasting neither a clock nor a fireplace, that lures the public. Of course, this service entails much work for the custodians, but is it not warranted by the appreciation of the genuine readers, and the lonely wanderers, who here at least find a welcome and a word of home? Not long ago I was reading an article in the Hobart "Mercury," when a young man with an undeniably Australian accent and pathetically home-sick expression approached* and inquired if I were a Tasmanian. .Unfortunately, I had to confess merely a literary interest, and not a personal acquaintance with his cherished Homeland —and there are many such as he—from all over the Empire. Must this, the capital city of the Dominion, isolated as we are, be deprived of so vital and important a link with the rest of the world as the "Newspaper Reading Room" of the Public Library?—l am, etc., A READER. 11th September.