Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1924. PUBLIC LIBRARY.

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 September 1924, Page 4

Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1924. PUBLIC LIBRARY.

Whatever the cause, it is generally 0 admitted that . the Greymouth - Municipal Library is in a deploro able condition, and there will be “ joy and gladness among the reading public that at Mast, the l_ llorough Council proposes to >- effect long-delayed improvements, is The report of the special committee appointed to enquire into the library’s defects, makes no attempt to pretend that there is nothing seriously wrong, but on. the con- - trary, urged the early destruction of many books that have long outlived their usefulness, and which in many instances are a menace to public health. The suggestion that the subscription rate should ! be increased is based on justice, . and not much attention need be paid to objectors looking for almost free reading. When free I libraries were established in British lands, the idea was mainly to help those -whose poverty prevented them from perusing the world’s best books, and it was a laudable ambition to come to these people’s rescue. In time, many of those taking advantage of library facilities, thus freely opened, preferred the lighter kind of fiction, and this taste, or lack of it, has been encouraged by library authorities, i despite their wails that the best authors’ worjks remain on the shelves, • whilst those with lesser worth but more sensation, are in keen demand. That encouragement took the form of confining the bulk j of the purchases to inferior novels, and it is time that public library authorities adopted a different course. Ratepayers should not be called upon to subsidise a form of reading unlikely to develop to the community’s advantage, •and : in a prosperous country like New ; Zealand, I here is no duty lo supply free literature to those who can well afford to buy books occasion- ' ally. The, present methods are unfair to author, publisher, hookseller, and ratepayers alike, the public libraries being treated as sources for amusement rather than education. The latter is their real purpose. It is well, too, that nwre 1 attention should be paid ih e reference department or the Grey-

mouth library, and it is to he hoped that the Council’s appeal for gifts of suitable books will be generously answered. A book or two from every household in the borough,—and there must be few that have not a suitable volume they could spare—would greatly increase the value of the public library without ill effect on private collections. Hoarding should be avoided in other things besides money, and better for a book to be placed where many can enjoy it than be kept unread on its purchaser’s shelf. The Greymouth library should now enter on a new era of usefulness, and a probable result of the better system will be an increase of subscribers, a lessening of the financial call on ratepayers, and an improved literary standard among the community the library was designed to serve.