COUNTRY LIBRARIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 913, 5 March 1930, Page 1

COUNTRY LIBRARIES

SCHEME TO ASSIST RURAL READERS NATIONAL PLAN PROPOSED “I do not think that the value of libraries can be overstated, or too often reiterated,” said Mr. John Barr, chief librarian to the Municipality of Auckland, in an address to the Libraries Association of New Zealand this morning- on “New Zealand Library Problems." The Libraries’ Association bad done its duty in providing reading for the people, Mr. Barr continued. At the 1926 census there were 435 libraries in the Dominion, the aggregate stocks of which were 1,266,892 volumes. Of the total number of libraries more than half were situated in small unmunicipalised townships, or in purely rural centres, but unfortunately only one-third of the total volumes were to be found in the smaller districts. This proportion was most unsatisfactory, and it was with the purpose of remedying the condition that he put forward some suggestions.

In advocating extension of library facilities for country people. the speaker argued that from the economic point of view it was surely a sound proposition to assist in making the conditions under which country people had to live more bearable, and to gite them something approaching the town facilities. Knowledge was as necessary in the country as in the town, and if it was true that the man on the land had less leisure than his city brother, that was sufficient reason for trying to place in his way the help which good reading could bring. Children in particular should be encouraged to read. At present the Government distributed 3,000 annually to country libraries where the population was less than 1,500. In 1928, 325 libraries participated in the subsidy, amounts varying from £b 11s to Ll--3s Allowing an average cost of a volume at ss, a low figure the most that any library could purchase from the grant would be 4S volumes, a "\ei> small augmentation to any library s stock being less than a book a week. Instead of the subsidy being divided in the present manner, he proposed that the subsidy be handed over into a central authority, say. the -Parliamentary Library, which in eftect should be the national library of New Zealand. An officer could be appointed to supervise country circulation.