FREE LIBRARY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 August 1940, Page 4

FREE LIBRARY

EXPERIENCES IN OTHER CENTRES REPORTS GENERALLY MOST FAVOURABLE. BIG INCREASE IN READERS. In view of the interest being taken by residents of Masterton in the proposed free library service, a summary is given below of the reports received by the Town Clerk, Mr G. T. O'Hara Smith, relating to the experiences of other municipal bodies which have adopted the Country Library Service. In the course of Tuesday night’s meeting of the Masterton Borough Council, Councillor G. W. Morice read extracts from these reports for the benefit of councillors. Rangiora Borough. “I am very much in favour of the free library system,” writes the Town Clerk of the Rangiora Borough Council. “If you make the change you will never regret it and will wonder why you never had it before. The library is a different place. You are not bound to buy books to please present subscribers and will find that your nonfiction readers will be able to get interesting, informative books which they can never get in a subscription library. This class of reader will increase' enormously and probably does not now use the library because he cannot find books to suit him. The system here is an outstanding success and costs very little more than it did when it was on a subscription basis. Fines are strictly enforced which could not be done in the old system, without losing subscribers. The country readers pay and they also have increased by 50 pei - cent. The Country Library Service is most helpful and especially as regards inter-loans. A Rangiora reader of the free library can I now get any non-fiction books in New ] Zealand free of charge. It is a wonder- > ful scheme, well run. We do not strike a library rate. I do not recommend a rate. You then have no limit to your expenditure beyond the sum fixed by estimates.” Library membership before changes, 242; library membership now, 1220.

EXPERIENCES IN OTHER CENTRES

Motueka Borough. “The library prior to going free was subsidised to the extent of £lOO from rates and the subsidy is now £180,” states the Town Clerk of the Motueka Borough Council. “It was found, after the change, that books which had been ‘dead stock’ for a number of years quickly came into demand, with a consequence that through wear and tear our book stock became depleted. To overcome this difficulty we introduced the pay collection, which falls into two categories. Firstly, we bought a number of reprints of light fiction, which is in popular demand to build up our stock of books again and secondly, we purchase all our ,new books through the pay collection, allowing seven days for reading for books costing over 6s. As soon as the book pays for itself. it goes on the free shelves. It will be found that some books are not popular and remain dormant on the shelves. These we transfer to free shelves before they pay for themselves and to offset the loss, allow popular books to remain in longer. This keeps the shelves full of popular books and maintains the demand for these books. We have found the change has been advantageous, as a larger number of ratepayers are now readers and the small cost to the borough is disproportionate to the increased demand on the library. The total issues for the year prior to going free were 26,001 and for the year ended March 31 last 34,285.” Library membership before change, 230; library membership now, 400. Pahiatua Borough. “It definitely represents the greatest benefit for the greatest number, as demonstrated by the large increase in membership,” ' states the librarian of the Pahiatua Borough Council. “New issues vary on the different visits of the book van. There may be a certain element of luck attached to it, depending on whether you happened to be the next library on the van’s itinerary after the addition of a number of new books you were wanting had been added to the van’s shelves. For example, on the last visit to Pahiatua we were fortunate enough to secure a copy of ‘How Green was my Valley’ before receiving a copy through our local bookseller, where it had. been on order for some time. We are still expected to purchase all the new light fiction.” Library membership before the change, 90; library membership now, 360. Kaponga Town Board. “We lost one or two old subscribers when we adopted the free system but this loss was overwhelmingly outnumbered by people who had previously been members joining up again,” states the Town Clerk of the Kaponga Town Board. “We are very satisfied with the class of book supplied by the service, both as regards condition and selection but think there is more room for improvement in connection with

the, latest issues. . . . Our experience is that the members are very keen to use the books supplied by the service. Prior to going free practically all of our stock was fiction but as half of the supply from the service is fiction and the other half non-fiction the members were slow to make use of the non-fiction at the start but they gradually took to it until now it is just as eagerly sought after as fiction, especially travel and biography. . . . We do not run a pay collection but keep very strictly to collecting fines on overdue books, charging for reserves and extra books. Strange as it may seem, the library revenue, instead of dropping when we went free, ac-

tually went up. . . . The reason for our revenue increasing is because cur members in the country have increased and as the town residents are free we do not hesitate to impose the fine for overdue books and other charges. We have no regrets at all at becoming a free library and it has proved most beneficial to the members. In the non-fiction section we are able to get from the service books that would be too expensive for us to buy out of our own funds. We have found the service most obliging and willing and they always go to no end of trouble to satisfy our requests.”

Library membership before change, 23; library membership now, 162.

Waimate Borough.

“Our library was one of the first io join up with the service, commencing in September, 1938 and we have found this service extremely useful,” states the Town Clerk of the Waimate Borough Council. “Naturally of course, it is costing my council considerably more to run the library now, than was the case under the subscription method. Under the latter we had to ■find something like £l5O per annum from the general account to make up the difference between the subscriptions and expenditure, while under ihe Country Library Service scheme, whereby the bocks are entirely free to burgesses, the general account has now to contribute something like £250 per annum, and with the increased costs before long this sum will reach £3OO. On the other hand, however, we are now able to give a much more comprehensive and useful service to the public than formerly. Our readers have increased from 258 to 638 and are still increasing, which shows that the people appreciate the value of the service. In a small town such as ours it is practically impossible to find enough revenue to more than cater for the fiction readers and even then we find it difficult to keep up anything like an adequate supply. With the Country Library Service, however, we get an excellent range of non-fiction works in addition to the fiction, and it is this non-fiction in particular which makes the service so useful. There are, of course, what one might call drawbacks in the free issue system, namely, that the very large increase in readers means that considerably more books have to be purchased by the council to meet the demand, as ihe quantity supplied by the service does not anything like cater for the increased demand. However, we are well satisfied that this additional expenditure is fully warranted by the increased use being made of the institution and the greatly improved service we are to give the public. In a large town like yours, of course, you arc able to give a much better service to your burgesses out of your own funds and are able to provide a fairly wide range of material to the readers, whereas in the smaller places, owing to the limited funds that are available, there is no possibility for providing such a range, much less keeping it up-

to-date. My council, however, are very strong believers in the policy of giving to the burgesses, services which will be useful and beneficial to them, free. That is, of course, as you know, by collecting money in the form of rates and not making any further charge for the use, such as by subscription method and our experience has been that such a policy is a wise one. . . .

The council are well satisfied with the service and personally I consider it very good indeed, especially for the smaller boroughs like our’s but I don’t think a larger borough like your’s would benefit in the same ratio because you can afford to give a reasonably good service to your burgesses from your own funds.” Library membership before change. 258; library membership now, 638. The questionnaires showed that in all cases there had been an increase in membership; that not many old subscribers had been lost (in Pahiatua all old subscribers had rejoined); all were satisfied with the class of book supplied on the grounds of condition, selection and latest issues, except in the latter case Motueka said there were few latest issues, Pahiatua said there was some luck attached to securing these and Kaponga said there was room for improvement; and adequate use was made of both fiction and non-fic-tion books in all cases, in the case of Pahiatua the demand for both being usually greater than the supply.