THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 143473, 21 April 1911, Page 2

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

The annual meeting of the subscribers to tho Public Library will bo held at the Town Hall this evening, when it is hoped there will bo a better attendance than usual. Last year there were eleven persons present, and unless there is some awakening of interest tho Borough Council may feel justified when the year’s Estimates are being considered, in economising in the matter of its subsidy to the library. Indeed it is a question upon which there may reasonably bo some difference of opinion, whether the council should continue to devoto something like £IOO a year, which can ill be spared from tho funds available to tho purpose of providing cheap literature—if the reading matter taken out by most of tho subscribers can bo called literature-;-for people who should provide their own books. But let us not bo misunderstood. We have not a word to say against the municipality furnishing and maintaining a library for tho use of people who cannot afford to buy books, or obtaining books of an instructive character for subscribers. What we take exception to is tho subsidising with public money of an institution whoso chief purpose is to provide light reading matter for people who, if they wish to kill time with tho latest novels, ought at least to pay sufficient to meet tho expenses. Wo recognise that tho library committee has higher ideals, and that tho members cannot bo held responsible for tho literary taste of tho subscribers. Nevertheless tho records of this library, as of most others, will probably show that an overwhelming proportion of the books taken out are of a class which cannot by any stretch of the imagination bo deemed instructive. Most of tho subscribers join for tho purpose of obtaining a cheap supply of “something to read,” and they are tho first to complain if the selection committee does not provide early copies of tho latest rubbishy novel. Tho committee cannot, perhaps, elevate tho popular tast.o, but it certainly seems,to us that it is wrong to spend tho ’rates op trash which is not worth'shelf room. Subscribers of tho class we refer to probably pay little more than a penny a book for what they read, and the ratepayers have to pay the difference between tho cost of maintaining tho library and tho sum total of the subscriptions. Is it not time, therefore, for the Borough Council to say that its subsidy must be spent entirely upon useful books, which shall bo freely open to tho public, and that subscribers to tho circulating library must, by their subscriptions, meet the expenses of the circulating branch?