THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 7926, 31 July 1886, Page 3

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

TO THE EDITOB. Sib, —The following extracts from a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the Chief Libraries of New Zealand," by C. W. Holgate, referring, as they do, to ourCanterbury Public Library, may be of interest to your' readers. "It is painful to have to record thai either the Governors must be very careless in admitting unworthy people> or that the people of Christchurch who undertake to observe the rales, must be unusually forgetful of their undertakings. Otherwise it is hard to account for the shamefully large list of books stolen from or damaged in the Reference Library during the last two and a half years. This, I believe, is the only so-called Free Library in Australasia -to which admission order* have to be obtained, and it is the only Free Library in Australasia which has suffered severely at the hands of the persons thus admitted. The onlj remedies which seem to me possible are to increase the staff of attendants, now much too small, and to do away with the admission orders once and for ever; put the readers on their honour without these formalities and undertakings, and the books will take care of themselves. The circulating department is not free from faults. Subscribers are permitted to \, have access to the shelves, and are allowed' to use the library as a reading room. Bub worse than this, between the hours of twelve and two this part of the library is usually invaded by a host of boys, who stand reading at the'shelves, many of them neither subscribers nor the sons of sabscribers, but the Librarian has not thepower to remove them. It also frequently happens that subscribers come in and ask for a book which is not to be found on the. shelf, but it is really in the library, beingread by some person who has no right to be in the library at all. Onei day, when I visited the library, seven persons were pointed out to me who were non-sub- | scribers. The evils of a semi-public library | such as this are painfully apparent, and it is much to be hoped that they maybe soon remedied, and so may be removed the only one blot which clings to the fair fame of Christchurch, to my mind the most charm- ' ing of all New Zealand cities." Without agreeing to all the remedial measures Mr Holgate points out for adoption, I feel quite with him as to the scandal. I which attaches itself to a place where so many valuable standard works are written, off the catalogue of a Public library, the greatest part of which have been purloined. —I am, &c, E. M. TEMPLER.