COUNCIL OFFICERS

Southland Times, Issue 22813, 12 February 1936, Page 9

COUNCIL OFFICERS

ATTENDANCE AT CONFERENCES COMMENT BY LIBRARY ASSOCIATION Comments on the decision of the Invercargill City Council not to pay the expenses of officers attending conferences are contained in a letter which the council has received from the New Zealand Library Association. “The motion recently passed by your council relating to the attendance of senior officers at conferences has come to my attention,” wrote the secretary. “The New Zealand Library Association is a body which has for some time past watched over the interests of librarians throughout the country. Without concerted action it is impossible for the status of libraries to be raised or for the library service to the public to attain its full efficiency. Concerted action is impossible if the principal persons engaged in library work are not able to meet. It seems to me an unusual ’ principle to make the improvement of a national library service through the free interchange of ideas expressed in conclave depend entirely on the willingness or the ability of the local officer to set aside part of his salary for the purpose. If the conferences were in the nature of a holiday or personal education, then such a principle might not be as indefensible as it appears at present. The case, however, is that the library movement in New Zealand stands to gain considerable assistance from various sources quite unconnected with local rates, and it depends on the foresight of local municipal officers whether the conferences and meetings of association executives which are necessary to that end are to be fruitful or otherwise. Effect of Restriction.

“The policy of the Invercargill Council is no concern of mine. I am, however, appointed to conserve the interests of the members and officers of my association. The Invercargill Public Library and its librarian have been respected for many years past by the rest of the library profession in New Zealand. That their activities should be stultified and hampered by such a restriction as that imposed at the last meeting of your council seems to me a beginning of Invercargill’s withdrawal from participation in the planning of progressive developments. Invercargill may, of course, decide to dissociate itself from the benefits of those developments, but 1 do not for a moment imagine that that will be the case. I wish merely at this juncture to point out that Mr Farnall’s elevation to the council of my association was something of an honour, that his advice has in the past been valued, and that, if other municipalities were to take up the attitude which has been adopted by your council, progress in library njatters (already some distance behind what has been done in England and the United States) would be completely dependent on the ability of salaried officers to pay their own expenses to meetings in other parts of the country. I should be grateful if you would bring these considerations to the notice of your council, because it seems to me that the amendment to postpone the motion being narrowly defeated, the council entered into its statement of policy without having had a full opportunity to consider the effect of its action upon the institutions as well as the officers concerned. The Invercargill Public Library, after all, stands to benefit from its librarian’s talks with other librarians and from the schemes which are formulated at meetings of the New Zealand Library Association and its council considerably more than Mr Farnall does himself. Conference Next Year. “Apart from the main considerations which I have outlined, there is the fact that probably in February, 1937, my association is holding a conference in Wellington of particular moment and importance. There is no conference this year as, out of regard for the pockets of municipalities and other members, my association meets only biennially. It seems to me that without departing from the principle which has been laid down by the council, it might consider it a graceful act to permit Mr Farnall to attend this conference in 1937, in view of the fact that the head of each other department is attending a conference during the present year. Mr Farnall would then, after all, have not received the benefit of more conferences than the heads of the other departments.” “Have you all read the letter, gentlemen?” asked the Mayor. “Personally I think the gentleman who wrote the letter took upon himself something that was not his business.” A motion that the letter be received was carried without discussion.