LIBRARY NEEDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22352, 25 February 1936, Page 12

LIBRARY NEEDS

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE RESOURCES INADEQUATE PUBLIC'S HELP REQUIRED "The news that our university library is to receive £3OOO, possibly £SOOO, in the next five years from tho Carnegie Corporation is indeed excellent, but it must not be therefore supposed that the library's financial problems are thereby even temporarily solved. Twice £SOOO would not meet its needs. Auckland has not yet began to possess what could be classed as an effective unii'ersity library." This statement prefaces a memorandum lately prepared by the librarian of Auckland University College, Miss A. Minchin, to show the present position of the library under her charge. The number of volumes in stock, the memorandum states, is 27,500. However, this represents the accumulation of over 50 years. While many of the older books retain their usefulness, others, especially in the sciences, quickly become out of date. The number of effective volumes in the library is less than half the total number. Adelaide and Auckland To 6how the inadequacy of the library, Miss Minchin makes a comparison between it and the library of Adelaide University. This has 95,000 volumes, and has received grants and gifts totalling £58,000, not including benefits from the general endowments of the university. Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool Universities have libraries ranging from 347,000 to 133,000 volumes, as the result of magnificent private endowments, as well as of State aid. The libraries of Birmingham, Leeds and Sheffield Universities have received in private gifts and bequests a total sum of £1,'500,000. To buy the generally-recommended books published in one year, and no others, would require £I3OO, but the Auckland library's annual book grant is only £336, out of which research as well as undergraduate material must be bought. The grant has to be spread over 20 subjects, which get an average of £l6 each yearly. The Royal Commission on university education in 1925 pointed out that the combined libraries of the four university colleges in New Zealand, with all the duplication entailed, were not equal to the library of the University of Bangor, the smallest in Wales, with fewer students than any New Zealand college. The commission recommended that a capital grant of £IO,OOO be divided among the four libraries, and that their annual book grant be doubled. Annual grants have since increased 23 per cent, but the capital grant has not been made. Use to Community Although Auckland boasts many munificent gifts from its citizens, few have' come the way of the university. Miss Minchin remarks. Southern institutions have fared better, both in general private endowments and in special monetary gifts for library purposes. The Auckland library has received onl)' £ll4B, whereas the figures for the other institutions are:—Canterbury, £5800; Victoria, £5400; and Otago, £4500. The college authorities in the near future will be faced with the need for providing more library accommodation, and a separate library building must be the eventual solution of the problem. The cost of such a building to meet the needs of 20 years or more will run into five figures. A well-equipped university library can be an invaluable specialised reference aid for its community. Once it attains a certain standard of usefulness, greater support should be assured. The need meanwhile is for aid from citizens seeking to find for funds an avenue of public service. Such aid would raise the library to an efficiency that would be in some measure a guarantee of further support.