Lower Hutt Library

Hutt News, Volume XII, Issue 22, 17 November 1948, Page 7

Lower Hutt Library

REPLY TO CRITICISM SERVICE TO COMMUNITY The recent criticism by a City Councillor of the cost of running the Lower Hutt Municipal Library lias

brought forth strong defence of the policy of the library and its great cultural benefit to the community. One citizen said:

“When one considers the service

the Lower Hutt Municipal Library

gives to the citizens it seems a very short-sighted policy to expect it to be run like a commercial library.

“The Lower Hutt people have every reason to be proud of their library. It is quoted as a good example of public service, not only from one end of New Zealand to' the other, but also abroad. Only recently the South African Library Association forwarded to the librarian a copy of their magazine, ‘South African Libraries,’ in which a very favourable review on the running of rlie library and its aims and objects as seen in its annual report was printed. “A visitor from Australia, Mr. F. J. Perry, bead of the Library School of Melbourne, recently spent an afternoon in the Lower Hutt Library and admitted then that the standard of book service here was above that of most of the Australian libraries. He considered that New Zealand was 50 years ahead of Australia in public library development.

Needs of Hood Library “Two people can easily issue the, books to the public, which is all the staff that the Lower Hutt Library uses, except at very busy periods, but it is well to remember that this is only a fraction of what a g%ocl public library should do. A proper selection of books has to he made and bought apd prepared to issue to the public. All this work is done in a commercial library in a common pool. The invoices and the statements have to he checked and rechecked. Then the books have to be sorted and classified' into their proper subjects, so that a member of the Lower Hutt Library will know where to look for a special book on, say, gardening or dressmaking or how to build- a caravan. Questions of this kind and innumerable others are being asked, continually by the public and are being satisfied. “If the library has not the special hook wanted in its stock it then borrows it. from another library. This entails a great deal of clerical work. As many as 5‘60 requests were answered ' last year from outsidd sources. The number of questions answered in the library itself is as many as fifty a day.

Lack of Space

“The library suffers from inadequate space and there is.no working room or even an office for the librarian. t Also there are a number of students and visitors, who come and go, who may appear to the public to be members of the They come from other libraries to note how Lower Hutt Library is run and are always very welcome.

“When the librarian first came to Lower Hutt 230 people were using it under the old subscription system. Within a few years 3000 people were using it. During the last two years, when the subscription system was abolished, 7041 people have become borrowers. These figures alone surely show that the Lower Hutt Municipal Library is a true public service, needed and used by the citizens of Lower Hutt.”