BOOKS FOR SETTLERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 November 1923, Page 3

BOOKS FOR SETTLERS

SCHEME IN AUSTRALIA.

One of the duties which State Governments in Australia set befoi e themselves very seriously is that of minimising, as far as possible, the handicaps of isolation upon settleis in remote parts. To relieve the monotony of life inevitable in a land of vast distances many schemes have been tried, and among the most successful has been Western Australia’s travelling libraries.

The avidity with which the man “outback” -will consume books when those of the right type are available to him, is well-known to all who have any acquaintance with sheep stations. When a book once reaches a station it is the property of nobody in particular, but passes from hand to hand, from manager to jackeroo, and even then its career of usefulness is only begun. By some mysterious process it migrates from station to station for, once everybody has read it, it is soon claimed by some travelling stockman or other traveller who sheds it again at some other station, where the process is repeated. It must be coverless, dogeared, and sadly deficient in leaves before the demands upon it begin to slacken.

Volumes have been known to work their way right across the continent in this manner, including, in their travels, return journeys to stations where they have already been more than w r ell read, in which circumstances the stockman who produces it finds himself the hapless butt of the disappointed occupants of the huts. This accounts for the story printed a few weeks ago of the discovery in tatters of a popular book in the manager’s home on a station west of the Darling by a gentleman who, by its inscription, identified it as one which he had posted to a jackeroo on a station at little south of Darwin four years ago as a Christmas present. How many hundred or thousands of miles that little volume has travelled over Australia’s empty spaces in the meantime or how many times it has been devoured by flickering lamps and guttering candles it would be hard to compute.

It was to cater in some measure for this deep thirst for reading that the Western Australian Government hit upon the idea some years ago of establishing travelling libraries. Under this scheme cases of books mostly fiction and some on topics likely to be useful to the man on the land—are sent out to institutions which are set up in small settlements and which become the centre of exchange. A centrally situated station may servo the purpose, for the people will go a long way for the books. Each case, containing at least fifty books, is called a library, and in some instances it has to be transported many miles on a camel’s back. Once at its destination, and taken custody of by the person who has undertaken the responsibility, it remains there until the books have gone the rounds of the whole district, then the library makes another journey to some other centre, and a fresh one arrives. About 300 such cases are working round in an orbit in the vast tracts of the Western State, and are doing much to make life pleasanter for those Avhose lots are cast in lonely parts.

The Railway Department allows the books to be carried at quarter rates on all lines. A standard case is provided for packing the books in, but for far-off places, such as Wyndham and Eucla, different cases are used to permit of more than the usual number of books being included, and to reduce the cost of car-

riage. The treatment of the books has been on the whole, admirable, and there has been very little loss in connection with the operations. Occasionally some books are lost, and are paid for by the borrowers, and at other times —very rare —a small loss has been incurred through a community dwindling away, and the persons responsible for borrowing the books disappearing. Applications come in for various classes of literature, and every effort is made to satisfy the tastes of all readers. In the newly-settled districts it is noticeable that the tendency is, for the most part toward fiction, the probability being that the majority of the settlers are too busy to. allow of their devoting attention to more serious reading.

In New South Wales during the past few years much good work has been done in the interests of the children of isolated settlers by a. correspondence school, which the Department of Education has established, and it is hoped very shortly to utilise wireless telephony to similar ends.