NEW ZEALAND LIBRARIES.

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3468, 19 May 1934, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND LIBRARIES.

FIFTY YEARS BEHIND A VISITOR’S VIEWS / Lending libraries which cost their liters nothing except a small addition"' to the rates, towns in which it is considered niggardly to spend less on library services than on educar cation, and an attitude towards lib- . raries in general which places them considerably higher than in New Zealand, were described to a reporter of the Press, Christchurch, by Mr Ralph Munn, director of the Carnegie Library at Pittsburg, United States, who is making a survey of the Dominior/s libraries. These happy conditions m the many towns of the United States which carry out to the full the American Library Association’s recommendation that not less than one dollar a head per annum should be spent on library services. “New Zealand librarians who have visited the United States,” said Mr TVlunn, “very quickly discovered that New Zealand libraries are, I would say, about 50 years behind those ,of England and America. They asked the Carnegie Corporation to send someone familiar with library work over to appraise and report on the New Zealand library system. That is why I am here now.” Select Body of Subscribers Mr Munn is particularly concerned over the subscription system in force in the lending libraries of New Zealand. “The free lending libraries in the United States are supported entirely by local taxation, and are considered a part of the educational system of the city in which they stand,” he said. There ■is no select body of subscribers who pay a special fee and whose desires must be specially catered for. “In New Zealand these subscribers appear to be interested only in detective storied and the lighter types of literature, and, because the libraries are dependent for their very existence on the fees of these persons, the librarians dare not 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 fiction,” Mr Munn continued. “Again, the children’s sections are not well developed in New Zealand outside of the four large cities.” Rural Library Problems 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’s 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, but it was hoped to find some other regional district in which library services could be developed to the advantage of the inhabitants of the backbiocks. “At least 100,000 dollars should be spent on library work in a town like Christchurch,” said Mr Munn, discussing library finance. “After extensive study the American Library Association has come to the conclusion that one dollar a head per annum is the minimum amount with which a reasonable library service can be developed. An Unjustified Expenditure “I think, however,- that the city councils of New Zealand would be entirely unjustified in paying any such sums as 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 the expenditure.” Mr Munn will leave for Australia on May 18th and spend two months there on similar work to that which he is doing in New Zealand. When he returns to the United States he will prepare a report on the 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 services in New Zealand in the most efficient manner possible.