PRIMARY SCHOOL LIBRARY DEPENDS ON LOCAL SUPPORT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 71, 19 July 1950, Page 5

PRIMARY SCHOOL LIBRARY DEPENDS ON LOCAL SUPPORT

Without the efforts of the book drive to be conducted by the Legion of Frontiersmen on Saturday it is probable that the Whakatane Primary School would have been without a library for some considerable time. There are no grants from the Government or Education Board for such libraries and in most schools it is left either to the individual committee or the people to supply the library. According to the chairman of the committee, Mr K. E. Francis, the special effort of the Frontiersmen on Saturday will be to canvass the people of Whakatane and Ohope for books to establish a library suitable for children up to 13 years of age.

Up to the present time the only books for the school was a limited supply from the Country Library Service. This was totally inadequate to the school's needs. Previously the school had prepared suitably equipped library facilities and had built a special trolley for transporting books around the class rooms. However, until the Frontiersmen's house-to-house collection was mooted the prospects of obtaining books was very poor.

"This most generous offer from the Legion is most sincerely appreciated by the school and committee but these combined efforts will fail unless Whakatane and Ohope residents respond to the appeal," Mr Francis said. "Too many of our youngsters are restricted to reading the tiny print and crude contents of the übiquitous comics through sheer lack of better material. When the Frontiersmen call at your house next Saturday let them have those children's books you stored away. Bring the stories to life again in the minds of our youngsters—good stories from good books."