Books

Te Ao Hou, December 1966, Page 16

Books It was believed firmly from the outset that the effectiveness of all the story hours would be at least doubled if good books were available for every child to borrow regularly. The School Library Service strained its picture book resources to the limit to provide for each of the three centres an initial loan of fifty books, chosen with a good deal of thought and care. The Advancement Committee donated £13 to buy books for Castlecliff, and the Aramoho

School Committee made a grant of £10 for Aramoho. These sums, spent through the School Committees, earned a £ for £ Government subsidy and were also subject to educational discount, so that books to the value of £54 were actually purchased. They were all chosen as being outstanding of their kind, and were selected by Mrs Hillary Wooding, a committee member of the Friends and formerly Organising Librarian for the School Library Service in Wanganui. There was never any question as to the success of the classes at Putiki. They went with a bang from the start, have been thoroughly enjoyed by both story tellers and children, and two years later are still attracting bumper attendances. This year one of the story tellers is Mrs L. M. Sutherland, one of the local mothers. To begin with there was a great lack of books for this group. The residents of Putiki are in an unusual situation so far as Wanganui Public Library is concerned. They are outside the city boundary, although less than half a mile from the G.P.O. as the kotare flies across the Whanganui River. If they wish to join the Public Library they must pay an annual subscription of £1, but very few do so. Many reasons besides cost keep them out of the library — time, effort, diffidence, feelings of ‘it's an all-pakeha show’, or lack of any particular inclination to read. Their children, by virtue of attending city schools, are entitled to free membership until the age of twenty-one, but very few use this privilege after leaving primary school. The local secondary schools have good libraries for the pupils interested enough to use them, but there is no carry-over to the Public Library when they leave school. A few join commercial lending libraries in town. Towards the end of 1964 the chairman of the Whanganui Educational Advancement Committee, Mr H. R. Metekingi, made an appeal for donations of children's books for Punga-haruru. By March 1965, 500 books had been received. Of these less than 200 were reasonably modern, and less than 30 were new. Roughly 10% were non-fiction for adults, and 30% adult fiction. The remaining 60% consisted of picture books and stories for the standards. It was evident that there was going to be an adult section in our growing ‘library’ whether we had planned one or not.