REMUERA'S NEW LIBRARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16039, 4 October 1915, Page 3

REMUERA'S NEW LIBRARY.

UP-TO-DATE INSTITUTION.

OPENED ON SATURDAY.

The Remuera Library was opened on Saturday afternoon by the Mayor, Mr. J. H. Gunson, who was presented, by the chairman of the City Council Library Committee, Mr. P. M. Mackay, with a greenstone and silver key as a memento of the occasion.

The Mayor spoke briefly of the library as being one of the first fruitsof Eemuera's amalgamation, with tie city. He was sure it would prove, a worthy offshoot of the great library in Weflesley Street, and be of permanent benefit to Bemuera.

Mr. Mackay congratulated the. citizens of Bemuera on their fine library. At present it contained 1218 volumes, of which about 150 were for the juveniles of the community. The general readihgroom, contained about 100 volumes, many periodicals, and the Auckland papers. It was a free library, so far as this department was concerned, but a small charge would be made in the lending department. .Mr. ,T. W. Leys said that a public library should become • the intellectual centre of the district in which it was established. Without good libraries good -literature would •. be , beyond the reach of most people. That disability was how removed from the people of Remuera, and it remained for them to make the library a success. /.,'„. ■•>.-;

The new building, which consists of two storeys, was formerly occupied by theI Remuera Road Board. The necessary [ alterations and the new furnishings have been carried out by the city engineer's department from suggestions of the chief librarian. The ground floor is occupied by the lending department, which has shelving < for some 2000 '■, volumes, a readingroom for children, furnished with' a book-case-designed to hold 500 volumes, and specially-designed tables and forms suitable juvenile readers, and a room intended for the use of clubs and societies of the district. On the upper floor is situated the general readingroom. which has seating . accommodation at tables for 36 readers, and is furnished "with a bookcase for books of a general reference character, and a periodical rack -for the magazines and reviews. At the entrance .to the readingroom there stands a twofronted newspaper slope, to hold the Auckland daily papers. "