Library changes

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 9, Issue 412, 12 November 1991, Page 4

Library changes

Last Friday the Ruapehu District Council endorsed a report on future library services within the district prepared' by their operations director, John Murrihy. In his report Mr Murrihy said the National Library had advised that while Ruapehu District Council libraries will be able to retain the books already in stock they will no longer be supplied with fiction, nonfiction and large-print books from the National Library's Support Loan scheme.

National Library books already being held in libraries within the district will continue to be rotated between those libraries but in time these will need to be replaced with new stock purchased by the District. A total of a little over 2,100 books on Support Loan were received by the Ruapehu District last year but National Library believes that local government should be primarily responsible for providing library services to the local community and that the

National Library should provide more specialised information through their network. However, National Library will continue to offer such services as individual interloan, cassettes, compact discs, book reviews and reference facilities as well as the micro-fiche catalogue. As from the first of this month all requests for non-fiction books will be dealt with by Hamilton National Library while requests for fiction will be channelled through the Na-

tional Library in Christchurch. Books borrowed from and returned to Christchurch will automatically incur the Ruapehu District Council library in greater postage/courier costs which will have to be passed on to the user of the service - the borrower. Until the end of last month $1 was charged for each book borrowed from Palmerston North and the increase which will be needed to cover the cost of books borrowed from Christchurch is currently being calculated. The National Library recommendation for the Turnpage9

Library changes

From page 4 purchase of 250 books per 1000 population per year - making a total of 4750 books for district libraries - was not met last year. "We purchased 2107 books and it is totally unrealistic for our libraries to achieve the recommended levels within the foreseeable future", said Mr Mur-

rihy. "With the reduction in National Library services we should be looking at increasing the book vote next year but in order to hold costs that would probable be at the expense of some other services." "We should also be looking at co-operating with other districts of similar size with a view to exchanging general fiction, non-fiction and large print books and discussions along these lines have already begun." Mr Murrihy said that this cut-back in the provision of services from the National Library was clearly a case of them having to reduce their expenditure to the "disbenefit" of all communities but particularly those in rural and small town areas such as those within the Ruapehu District. "I fail to see how requiring libraries throughout New Zealand to substantially increase their book stocks - as opposed to National Library holding a far smaller book stock centrally - can be in the national economic interest", he said.