Library surprise

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 14, Issue 688, 27 May 1997, Page 4

Library surprise

• It never fails to surprise me, the lack of imagination of the Ruapehu District Council management and council. There must be a name for the mindset which cannot see beyond cutting staff, cutting services and increasing charges as a means of solving problems and improving revenue. I would call it incompetence. The new Ruapehu District Council community service manager, Tessa Hall quotes the National Library Joint Standing Committee's report on interloan costs, as a justification for increasing library interloan charges. The report looked at net lender libraries where the demand for material being interloaned to other libraries had resulted in increased staff costs. This is not a problem in the Ruapehu District libraries. Ruapehu District librarians are encouraged to request material first from the National Library collections, then their regional counterparts at no cost, before requesting from libraries further afield. In the majority of cases interloans can be supplied without charge as the general consensus among public libraries throughout New Zealand is for a free interloan service. The computer networking of the three Ruapehu District libraries reduced the amount of duplication in purchasing books classed as recreational material. This made it possible to increase the selection and number of purchases of popular titles. It is not this material that many people request on interloan. It is material only available in larger libraries with broader collection development responsibilities and access to varied and numerous publishers and suppliers, or specialised library collections. Increasing the charges for interloaning this type of material, not available elsewhere in the district, only serves to increase the intellectual isolation of those living in the area, as well as reducing the library' s role as information provider. What if in the future all the larger net lender public libraries or special libraries begin charging for supplying interloans, because smaller libraries are not pulling their weight, will these also be passed on to the Ruapehu District library membership? Finally, has the costs of postage, packaging and on-line searching increased since January 1997? Since then the position of qualified library manager and trained online researcher have been eliminated. Is the council going to provide additional library services with the money they are convinced they have saved?

Jean Densem

Chenier