BRISK BUSINESS

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 50, 27 August 1932, Page 14

BRISK BUSINESS

IN CITY LIBRARIES

MARKED INCREASES

MORE NON-FICTION

■While most people and most depart■inents, State and muninipal, have been deploring the slackness of things in general, the City Libraries Department has gone gaily ahead, setting up new high figures in every department, and incidentally in. the subscription revenue. So brisk has been the business lately that the department will end the year with a substantial credit balance. People are' reading more than they did a few years ago. Just vrhy, one must argue out for himself. Unfor- J tunately many .people have more time on their hands than they wish, and they read to pass that time; others read because it is less expensive than other amusements; but others again, as the figures of books issued and the remarkable patronage of the reference and commercial departments show, are reading more from serious interest. MORE THAN IN SYDNEY. Wellington is not to be compared ■with Sydney as a city, but Wellington's municipal library work more than compares with that of the Sydney municipal library, for, serving a very much smaller population, with a smaller staff and with a very much less number of books, the Wellington libraries show higher issued of books than the Sydney library. The latest figures available show that in 1930 the Sydney issues were 590,852, compared with 627,128 from the Wellington libraries. The comparison is really more in favour of Wellington, than is indicated by those bare figures, for the Sydney municipal library is wholly a lending library and does not contain a reference collection. Reference department work in the Central Library is of an, importance not far short of that of the lending department. The two rooms are usually fairly well filled every afternoon, and on some afternoons there are no 'seats to spare at all. It is not possible to obtain figures as to the patronage of this department, for leaders come and go all day long, but an estimate, probably on the conservative side, places the probable number of books seriously consulted at over 200,000 per year, including books on philosophy, Teligibn, sociology, language, science, fine and useful arts, literature, history and biography, but exclusive of magazines and the like. Again, the Central Library contains a newspaper reading Toom, quite the exception as most libraries go. It has been suggested more than once tba|; this room should be closed as such and the space used to relieve other badly crowded departments, but the leading room is used daily by many hundreds of people and is often more crowded than the Tooms upstairs. NEW DEPARTMENT A GREAT SUCCESS. "When. the. commercial reference department proposal was made a couple of years ago it was not taken very seriously by manyipeople, for the need of such a specialised reference department did not impress them. In fact, it has proved so popular that ' the small spacep 'available iv the building is often1 insufficient to accommodate all who wish to look up special subjects. No one can say that the value of a, reference department and of a specialised commercial reference department is so many hundreds of pounds per annum, for it is impossible to place an £, s. d. value 'on such service, but the aggregate benefit to the city from these -well pationised facilities is undoubtedly very considerable. INCREASE IN ISSUES. . In sis years the number of issues from the lending departments (Central and branch libraries combined) has increased by almost quarter of a million per year, big figures surely. The •comparison is this:— ■ 1925. 1031. Increase. Central (adult) .. 166,505 246,676 80,171 . (juvenile) 14,146 18,197 4,051 Xevrtown 83,469 120,764 37,295 Brooklyn 6,421 23,744 17,323 Karori 4,099 31,750 27,651 Kgaio (transferred to council, 1930) — 21,056 21,056 Schools 155,460 203,023 47,563 430,100 665,210 235,110 Taking another set of figures for the Central Library (adults), for 1922, 1927, and the year just ended, at 31st . March, another very interesting fact is shown, substantiating the contention that people are to-day Teading more seriously than they did a few years ago: 1922. 192". 1932. Fiction 150,560 168,142 202,509 Kon-flctlon .. 9,495 11,194 49,060 160,035 179,336 251,569 In the last five years, therefore, the increase in the issues of books of nonfiction has actually been greater than that of books o£ fiction, an adequate justification of. the policy introduced a few years ago of placing on the lending department shelves books that formerly •were treated solely as reference room volumes, and a fairly complete reply to those who regard the library service of no great value as catering for fiction readers onlj\ The still increasing patronage of the reference and commercial departments, the growing list of subscribers, the increase in books issued, and the much, larger number of books taken out for serious, as against light, reading, prove that Wellington, people do appreciate the library service, carried on though it is under considerable difficulties of cramped and out of date buildings.