THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, JULY 27, 1911 SCHOOL LIBRARIES.

Colonist, Volume LIII, Issue 13169, 27 July 1911, Page 2

THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, JULY 27, 1911 SCHOOL LIBRARIES.

Mr T. W. Leys, of Auckland, the President of the Now Zealand Libraries' Association, is moving in the direction of offering practical encouragement to school children to take up suitable courses of general reading in their leisure hours. The perversion of the literary tastes of youthful readers by the flooding of the. markets «ith light and sonsational fiction is generally deplored. Several of the larger public libraries of the Dominion have endeavoured to stimulate a love of healthy literature suitable for young readers,■ and that their efforts' have not been altogether unavailing is shown by the statistics of juvenile libraries offering specially easy terms of subscription. In Dunedin, whore there is a Carnegie Free Library, a juvenile department was opened in June, 1910, the committee deciding to lend books for homo reading. Since that date 5742 volumes have been lent to 406 readers. At Auckland, where a subscription of five shillings per annum is charged for the juvenile library, only 7SO books were issued last year. It is evident therefore that even a small charge is sufficient to prevent largo numbers from availing themselves of the benefits of library membership. In England, where municipal libraries are supported by therates, any boy and girl ten years of age and upwards may obtain books freo, but such a. departure in connection with most of the New Zealand libraries is at present of course out of the question, and the only means by which the deficiency can be met Jioro is the establishment of a new system of school libraries. This question Mr. Leys discussed very fully in a lecture he recently delivered at Auckland, to whifhwc aro indebted for the information contained jn this article The library litoratnrc of the United States abounds with suggestions in regard to the management of school libraries, there -being no system of organisation common to all the States. In some cities books are supplied both for circulation and reference in the schools, to 4 be road or referred to at odd times. At Seattle, for example, duplication collections are made up in sets of 20 volumes each, and sont to school roon's in various grr.des. Reference* books iv limited nunjbors aro placed in principals' offices, and drawn from thevo by tho teachers. These reference collections contain from 50 to 90 volumes each. Picturo books are provided for tho junior classes. Collections arc also supplied for Sunday schools. These books aro used by the pupils at odd | minutes during school hours, at fecess \ and before the opening of the school i sesßfdiis; Tfeaoh«rif Art not uifuall?'

held personally responsible for books lost, but generally look after the. libraries. Personal visits by library officers are made periodically to the rooms where the teachers havo taken the books to, to change, the. collection whenever the teacher desires, and to keep a genoral oversight of the school libraries. It is cousidorod that 40 volumes to each class should be the smallest number supplied. A matter that is of great interest and importance to country districts is the system of travelling libraries, which has been established all over the United States, and also in Victoria and South Australia. In the Australian-States the system is worked in a very simple manner. The metropolitan libraries of Melbourne and Adelaide are maintained by the Government, and from the surplus books assorted boxes are mado up, .consisting paTtly of general literature and partly standard fiction, and forwarded to any district that applies for them and establishes a committee to take charge and carry out the distribution of the books. The central position of the Australia^ capitals, and the fact that all the rail-ways-radiate from these centres, enables a distribution to bo made easily and economically. But the circumstances of Now Zealand ar-e so entirely different that it would be almost impossible to control travelling libraries from one centre. One of the difficulties is the fact that part of the transmission would have to take place by sea, and this would involve freights and agents to receive shipments on ( on arrival, and to see to their proper distribution. Traveling libraries for adults might bo worked in conjunction with school libraries, or an arrangement might bo made by which cases of books could be made \ip at any centre whore a public library :and library staff existed. The whole resolves itself into a question of cost. The Libraries' Association of New Zealand, at both the conferences held since its establishment; has endeavoured to impress upon the Government the necessity for inaugurating some system by which settlers in the back-blocks may be supplied with tho advantages afforded by public libraries in centres of population. Tho Association has put forward two or three suggestions for consideration, but so far has failed to secure any action by the Department of Education, under whose jurisdiction tho work would naturally fall. The Minister of Education is hoartily in sympathy with the adaptation to New Zealand's needs of the systems described by Mr Leys, the cost being tho greatest obstacle to be overcome. From an estimate Mr Leys has made of the cost of starting school libraries based upon tho purchase of one book, costing an average of 3s, for every child on the school roll in the fourth and higher standards in 1909, it will be seen that a sum of £6,341 would bo sufficient to initiate the system, so far as the purchase of books is concorned to which, of course, must be added the cost of administration. On this basis the initial cost in the Nelson district would be £262 16s. In Eduction of these amounts may be set the present expenditure on school libraries. The annual cost of maintenance Mr Fowlds estimates at one shilling per pupil per annum, which, based upon an average attendance of 50,0' V) in the standards named, would amount to £2,500 a year. Mr Leys commends his proposal to the consideration of the Educational Institute, by which it is sure to bn sympathetically received.