FIFTY YEARS AGO

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21938, 23 October 1934, Page 6

FIFTY YEARS AGO

PUBLIC LIBRARY CONTROL rCRITICISM OF COMMITTEE " YELLOW-BACKED NOVELS M The praise given the Auckland Pub.lie Library by Mr. Ralph Munn, director of the Carnegie Library,, Pittsburg, on his recent visit, is a far cry from the remarks of the New Zealand Hehald on the same subject 50 years / ■ ago. The following is an extract from a leading article of October 2-3; 1884:-^ "The report of the Library Committee of the City Council will be sub. £• - mitted at the meeting to-night, and it is just of the nature which might have been expected from men who have shown that they know nothing of the subject they are dealing with; indeed, they are much worse than men whoknow that they are ignorant, for they ' H have utterly erroneous ideas, built up on a stratum of self-conceit. They have laboriously engaged in building up a library for 'loafers' and 'spongers,' they . have been purchasing the veriest trash of yellow-backed novels (only in expensive bindings), while at the same time the library is of little use to : anyone who wants to refer to the standards of literature, or to books containi ing technical instruction :in the arta and sciences. " A library requires to be built up and no committee of the City Council, constantly changing in its constitution, and composed of men elected for other purposes, can hope to do such work. committee selecting books must, to begin with, know intimately what they already have; they must make up their minds as to the balance they intend to establish; they must be acquainted with the different departments of literature, science and art; tihey must be to a considerable extdnt a constant bodv; and they must have other qualifications, of which the Library Committee are quite destitute.