Libraries in Camps

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 89, 7 March 1941, Page 5

Libraries in Camps

HE librarian at one of the main Territorial Camps was in Wellington the other day, and he gave me some information. During the’ first fortnight hundreds of men joined the camp library ‘and 3,000 books were issued. On Sundays, the busiest queues of men wait to have their books issued. and discharged. Every type of reader can be found there, from the university student to the man who

has not read a book since he left school: The librarian has made his office available as a study for men doing serious reading, and it’s sometimes crowded out. A series of lectures by experienced speakers who are in camp themselves has been fos- * tered By ‘the library, and books bearing on these talks are being supplied by the Country Library Service. Of course circumstances are specially favourable from the library point of view at that camp, there being no other attractions within reach. Where a camp is near a city and men can get away for week-end leave, the amount of reading done is much less. But results are encouraging. Here are some of the special requests received from another camp: "The Story of Codes and Ciphers," "The Doctor in War," "Civil Defence," "Handbook of the Pacific." These were all in one or another of the _Main libraries of New Zealand and the inter-loan system took the books where they would be most useful-in the camps.-("Librarians in the Witness Box," 4YA, February 20.)