FREE CHILDREN'S LIBRARIES

Evening Star, Issue 21723, 18 May 1934, Page 8

FREE CHILDREN'S LIBRARIES

AN ESSENTIAL TO MAKE A READING NATION fPir Ukited Press Association.] . AUCKLAND, May IS. “It is quite clear in my mind that New Zealanders do much less reading than we in the United States,” said Mr Ralph Miinn, who leaves to-day for Sydney after surveying New Zealand libraries on behalf of the Carnegie Corporation. “Certainly the American Public Libraries are used to a vastly greater extent. 1 place part ol the credit for the reading habits of the average American to the system c-f children’s libraries. American libraries are entirely free to all residents, and every conceivable effort is made to interest children.”

A few of the more progressive New Zealand libraries were fully aware of the value of work for the children, but this was a recent development. Too many New Zealand libraries still paid no attention to children, and hoped t make readers out of people after they grew up. That might also account for the overwhelming demand for light, cheap fiction in New Zealand. He sin cevejy hoped that, when economic conditions improved, library committees would strengthen their children’s service. Even if adult subscriptions were maintained, the children’s service should bo free. Subscriptions from children amounted to almost a negligible sum, but they acted as a hairier, keeping thousands of children from the library. He hoped others would follow Christchurch in making the children’s service free.