LIBRARY TRENDS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 51, 1 March 1935, Page 14

LIBRARY TRENDS

AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT

NATIONAL CENTRAL SERVICE

(By Telegraph.) (Special to the "Evening Post")

DUNEDIN, This Day.

t "It is in America that one sees the v fullest development of the public t library'as a social institution," said - Mr. A. G. W. Dunningham, librarian of 1 the Dunedin Public Library, on his re--1 turn from a nine months' tour under S a Carnegie fellowship. "It has been 3 found valuable to plan the work of 3 primary and secondary schools around - well-staffed and excellently-stocked 3 school libraries. Separate services have ' been developed to provide information 3 readily to business men, and art and 1 music societies find special departments l* covering their interests and committee •: rooms for their meetings. The i lecture hall of the public library I is available for the showing of valui able cinematographic material for the 3 encouragement of the Little Theatre - and the Children's Theatre movements, i and the libraries also serve to invite - and introduce persons whose views or s experience may be of interest. t "In an old country such as England, l with its wealth of established and 3 traditional institutions, the public hbi rary has perhaps a more limited and ! less socially varied function," said Mr. t Dunningham, "but even there the prol viding of lecture facilities is being : undertaken, but it is in the new couni tries that the convergence of music, drama, art, and other social and also ■ business ■ and technical interests all i tend towards more economic centralisation such as is possible within a public ; library. The parallel developments of interests within such a community ; tend to find natural co-ordination, and .an obvious meeting ground at the place. where the literature of these various interests is being made available." . The present success of the American library as a social and cultural • centre is the outcome of public confidence in a careful and conscientiously administered library policy, he continued. Every effort is made to ensure that material which is of use or value within the city should be freely available, and always with this there is available also a reasonable supply of recreational reading. • BRITISH NATIONAL CENTRAL LIBRARY. The establishment of a National Central Library of Great Britain made the book holdings.of important 'and specialised English libraries available to every person within Great Britain, said Mr. Dunningham. The need for the development of a National Central Library arose comparatively recently with the problem of providing out of the. way material in newly-formed county libraries. Their service was chiefly to rural districts and thenstock was new and inadequate, and it was impossible to buy stock to satisfy the non-recurring demands of the serious reader who might require a book on some unusual topic. Requests of this sort came to be forwarded to the National Central Library, which undertook the task of locating the volume needed and sending it, when available. The outcome of Mr. Ralph, Munns , recent survey of New Zealand library ( systems, made posible by the Carnegie ' Corporation of New York, was to. find means for a similar organisation of s library resources within New Zealand, ) and to discover also in what way the 1 library service could be most economically provided to country districts, .said Mr. Dunningham. The 1 outstanding success within compara- q tively recent years of both these aspects of library development in Eng- ( land made one confident that the problem in New Zealand would.not now be over-difficult and that economy ] would result from the consolidation which would be brought about within the Dominion's own library movement. -^