“A BIT HIGHBROW”

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 July 1945, Page 3

“A BIT HIGHBROW”

COMMENT ON GREY LIBRARY. “In my opinion our library is getting a bit highbrow; there seems to be a dearth of the lighter and popular books,” said Cr. P. Blanchficld (Deputy-Mayor) at a meeting of the Greymouth Borough Council last evening, during a discussion of the Library Committee’s report. Cr. Blanchficld added that, he was voicing the sentiments of many readers, and he thought it might be a. suggestion to the Library Committee to consider the question. The Council had to consider the greatest good lor the greater number. Cr. J. B. Kent (Chairman of the Library Committee) said that any particular books that were required had only to be requested and they would be secured if they were available. Cr. Blanchficld said he knew that, and he did not blame the Librarian, but he still thought more of, the popular type of book and less of the technical type should go into the library. Cr. F. F. Boustridge agreed that the pay collection was'' very poor. There were only about .100 books there, not counting the ones that were out. Cr. Blanchfield said that that was .where the library as a free service

had fallen down —it was not free to the people who wanted the popular books. Cr. H. Hutchinson agreed with Cr. Blanchfield and said that in the last few weeks he had found difficulty in getting an interesting book to read. The Mayor (Mr. F. A. Kitchingham) said that as far as the fiction was concerned the Council, with its resources, should not compete with people who made their living from books of' that type. The municipal library should be on an equal footing with the ordinary lending library. Cr. Boustridge said there was a splendid amount of. good reading in the library, but people did not want those books all the time. A great number of the books of Fiction were old and out of date—some of the authors had gone cut of print many years ago. He thought they should try to put some more up-to-date popular fiction there. Cr. Kent said there was a suggestion book in the library and it had been there to his knowledge for.the past 15 or 20 years, but there were very few suggestions put into it. The Library Committee would be only too pleased to put more of the light fiction on the shelves if the Council would put another ,£lOOO on the estimates for it. Books were very expensive now, and as far as the payment for fiction was concerned the Council had no wish to com-

pete with the commercial libraries in the town. „ , J ~ The Mayor said that the prices oi. b'ooks had gone up very considerably, and books that once cost 7/0 had gone up to at least 15/-. At 3d a time the Council would propably lose on the outlay, for the war-time birdings would not stand the weal’. LIBRARIAN’S REPORT. The Librarian's report for June, as fellows, was read and adopted: Books issuecl: Country library service. 1398; fiction, 2094; non-fiction, 599; junior, 216; rental 807; total, 3710. Receipts: £ll/3/-. The Country Library Service van recently visited the library and 476 books were changed and 230 re-issued. Together with the four loan collections, the number of books on loan from the Country Library Service is brought up to nearly 1000. The value of this assistance in supplementing the stock cannot be overstated. Thirty-five books have been added to the library’s own stock. The newspaper stand and files have been installed in the former magazine room. ’ A start has been made on the establishment of the junior library in the former newspaper room, 120 children’s books having been accessioned to form the nucleus of the stock. It was decided to have new island stands made for the library.