LIBRARY POLICY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22258, 10 May 1934, Page 6

LIBRARY POLICY

INQUIRY IN NEW ZEALAND CARNEGIE CORPORATION INTERESTED ARRIVAL OF MR R. MUNN With the object of reporting to the Carnegie Corporation in New York on the New Zealand library system, Mr ’Ralph Munn, a director’of, the Carnegie Library, Pittaburgh, is paying a visit to New Zealand, and arrived in Dunedin last night in the course of his tour of in in ßt lm interview with a Daily Times reporter Mr Munn said .that New Zealand librarians who had visited the Cm ted States, very quickly discovered that New Zealand libraries were—he would say In an interview, Mr Munn said that New Zealand librarians who had visited the United States, very quickly discovered that New Zealand libraries, were—he would say—about 50 year* behind those of England and America. They had asked the Carnegie Corporation to send someone familiar with library work over to .appraise and report on the New Zealand. . library system.. . , . Mb Munn is particularly concerned oyer the subscription system* in force in djhe lending libraries of New Zealand. The free lending libraries in the United States are supported entirely by local taxation, he said, “and are considered a part of the educational system of the city in which they stand. There, is no.select body of subscriber* who pay a special fee and whose desires must be specially catered for. ••■■■, . , “In New Zealand,” he said, these subscribers appear to be interested only in detective stories and the lighter types of literature, and, because the. libraries arc dependent'for their very existence on the fees Of these persons, the librarians dare hot select books of a genuine educational and cultural value. I have seen many libraries in the smaller country towns of New Zealand in which the book collection is 97 per cent, fiction, and a very cheap and ephemeral fiction at that. . . “In the larger cities of the Dominion the librarians have made a determined effort to make their libraries exert a greater educational force, but their subscribers exert an ' unfortunate influence in demanding a large supply of light 1 fiction,” Mr Munn continued. the children’s sections are not well developed in New Zealand outside of the four large cities. I have heard, by the wav, a good deal about the children s room in the Christchurch Library, and . I am looking forward to visiting it. Because of the large area of the country districts in New Zealand and their sparse settlement, the small towns and • rural areas presented, in Mr Munn a opinion, a particularly difficult problem. In England the library system had been developed with the county as the administrative unit, and practically every English farmer ’ had access to a nearby library. The county in New. Zealand, however, was not an appropriate , unit,, hut it was hoped to find some other regional district to which library service- could be developed to the advantage of the inhabitants of the backblocks.^ “After extensive study the American •Library Association had come to the conclusion that one dollar a head per annum is the minimum amount with which a; reasonable library service can be developed,” Mr Munn added. “ I think, however, that the city coun- ; oils of New Zealand would be entirely: <' unjustified in paying .any such sums aB p are paid in the United States to the • libraries of the Dominion as they exist to-day. It is to be hoped, though, that the libraries here will in time develop, along educational and cultural lines ; so that their return to the country will fully justify such an expenditure. Mr Munn will leave for . Australia on May 18 and spend two months there on work similar to. that which he is doing in New Zealand. When he returns to* the United States he will prepare a re-' port on the 1 libraries of New. Zealand, with recommendations for their future conduct and suggestions for the-way in which the existing libraries can be adapted to meet the demand for library service* in New Zealand in the most efficient mapner possible. He is being ac-companied-;on his >New Zealand tonr by Mr John Barr, chief librarian of the Auckland Public Library, who will aid him inpreparing his report.