TRAVELLING LIBRARIES

Hokitika Guardian, 11 September 1920, Page 4

TRAVELLING LIBRARIES

PROGRESS LEAGUE’S SCHEME.

j STATE, GRANT available.

* (Christchurch S un -) - In April last, the Canterbury Progross League in conjunction with the ■ Canterbury , Public Library, evolved * and. financed a scheme of “travelling ■ libraries” for tho ’benefit of country dis- * tricts whore no public libraries exist. More lately a deputation from the league waited on the Minister of Education * (Hon. C. J. Parr) and asked that the i system of Government subsidies to ■ small coiintl'y libraries be extended so as * to inoitide “travelling libraries” such as those established by the League. Mr P. R. Climie, the League’s organiser, lias now been informed by the Secretary for 'Education that it is pro- ' posed to amend the list of conditions governing the distribution of the annual grant to public libraries in country districts by providing tliat the subsidy received by any library may be expended on the loan, as well as the purchase of hooks. I At present the arrangement is tliat the Canterbury Progress makes an annual grant of £SO to the Canterbury Public Library, which forms collections of about 40 volumes of fiction and genej ral literature and cTi'spatohes them to each district, often in specially-made , wooden boxes, the residents paying the cost of carriage The collection of books are returned, every three months at tho residents’ 'expense and replaced by fresh ones. As a rule the schoolmaster of oach district acts as Librarian. \t present the scheme is working in the Mayfield,. Hinds, Mason’s Flat, Barfield : Waddington, Oh ok a, Lowcliffe, and Avooa districts, while two others—Ci.il--1 verden and Coldstream have applied for inclusion. The £5 subsidy, for each j Centre, it is considered, just about meets the expense incurred by the Canterbury Public Library for packing, and | wear and tear of hooks. Each set -f .40 volumes, contains about 25 per cent j of fiction, the rest consisting of books of travel, biography, history and sci- | once. A proportion of the hooks sro I new, and the remainder are taken from j , the general stock of the lending library, j j The conditions' under which the Go- , vernmont grant to a library is made are briefly these:—The Library is entitled to a grant on the basis of its annual income (exclusive of subsidies received from the Government, local bodies, endowments and certain other sources) but, in the distribution of tho sum annually voted by Parliament, a nominal addition of £25 is made to the income ! of the Library as above described, but no library is given credit for an income of more than £25 (without rile grant). In recent years, the grant las amounted to about one-third of the income (inclusive of the nominal addition of £25). Thus assuming that one of the league’s “travelling libraries” has an actual income fo £6 (£5 from the League arid £1 from . ridents of the district), the Government would assume the income to/be £3l, and.would make a grant of something like 1 0 It can readily be understood that such a grant would materially held the scheme. Tlie League has not yet had time ’o to decide what it will do, now that the Government grant is available, but it is likely that the country people who benefit by the scheme will be asked to take the financial responsibility off the shoulders of the league by subscribing a sufficient sum annually to earn the grant.