HAWERA INSTITUTE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume IX, Issue 1637, 30 May 1887, Page 2

HAWERA INSTITUTE

. •*. The annual meeting of the Hawera Public Library and Institute members this evening will be held under pleasanter conditions than has ever been the case since it was first opened. The Institute ia now well

conducted, well patronised, there are more members, more books, periodicals, and papers than ever before ; and, so far as we can learn, the finances are ia a fairly satisfactory state. The Hawera Borough Council a week or two ago stirred up the members of the Library Committee i more than a little. It seems that one of the chief sources of expense, and one which returns little or no revenue, is the public reading room. The expenditure on lighting alone is, perhaps, the heaviest item which the committee has to face. The subscriptions tendered by the public during the year and put into the subscription box in tbe room are said to have been " one threepenny bit, two or three coppers, and a gelatine ; lozenge," or thereabouts. Consequently that source of revenue is not to be depended upon. The Institute Committee, when it applied to tbe Borough Council for a grant of £20 in aid, almost as a right, based its application chiefly on the ground that the public reading room was a public benefit mainly iutended for aud used by tbe burgesses, tbe cost »f whicb ought certainly in part to be borne by th n borough fund. The grant asked for was rather for a public institute than as a library grant. The remarks published by the Stab on tbe subject were based on the discussion which took place place in the Borough Council, where almost every speaker talked clii fiy of the class of books to be bought out of the grant. Looked at as a grant in aid of a public reading room we are free to confess that the institute committee have a right to expect a substantial grant in aid, ao long as the wants of tbe reading public are Fairly attended to. We only wish that a further grant for new books for educational and reference purposes, couldbe added by tbe Borough Council to the £'20 asked for and granted apparently as a share of the cost of keeping the public reading well lit, kept in order and attended to. The librarian, Mr. S. Dixon, deserves much credit for the way in which he has done bis share of the work. It has clearly been a labor of love with him rather than a question of pay.