COUNTRY LIBRARY SERVICE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23515, 1 June 1938, Page 8

COUNTRY LIBRARY SERVICE

Officially inaugurated this week by the Prime Minister, the country library service for which the plans have been maturing for s6me time past is now launched upon its mission of conveying books and publications to those who have most difficulty in obtaining them. The reading that “ maketh a full man ” is to be rendered more accessible to the people who do not enjoy the library amenities of the towns and cities. The country settler is to have his opportunity of becoming a full man in the Baconian sense, which has nothing to do with a possible emptiness due to a lack of the compensated price. The travelling library has established itself as a valued institution in other countries. Its introduction in New Zealand is, therefore, not to be considered an experiment, and is no more than should be expected of a community which desires to keep pace as well as it may with educational progress and with the promotion of what are called cultural influences. A catchphrase of the time is “ education for leisure.” Country people, it is generally understood, have not as much leisure for reading, and for absorbing, or attempting to absorb, the views of many authors, as townsfolk have in these days of the forty-hour week. But a good deal could be said concerning the reading habit. Its cultivation must surely be largely dependent on the literary soil that is available, which, in the case of the average country library, with its limited resources, cannot very well be exactly rich and stimulating. The travelling library service should go some way towards removing that disability. The contents of the well-filled vans, one for each island to begin with, that are

to tour the Dominion will doubtless be of delectable choice for meeting the varied individual requirements that have to be taken into consideration. It would be rash to suggest that this movement is likely to have a discernible effect in checking the drift to the towns which is often deplored. But its claims to commendation are manifest, and the organisations which have interested themselves in bringing it to fruition should be able to contemplate with considerable satisfaction the beginning that has been made as the trained librarians in charge of the peregrinating libraries set the wheels of their vehicles in motion and take the road on their book-distributing pilgrimage.