Accessing the Law from Smaller Libraries

Accessing the Law from Smaller Libraries
This session will begin by offering you a little insight into how the law works – before we go on to look at some strategies for tackling the sorts of queries that your clients might be asking and looking at the sorts of resources you can call on.

There is a handout listing a judicious selection of resources from the web and in printed form.

Let’s start with a real-life scenario -

Someone comes to the Desk and hands over an i-Pod saying, “I found this in the Library – can I keep it if no-one claims it?”
Now you may have a library policy on lost and found items, but whether you do or not, this is in fact a query about the law. And if push comes to shove, the law will override your policy. So where might you find a statement of the law on lost property?
Perhaps it’s in a statute?
We first need a little legal history.
Our legal system – Parliament, courts and judges and lawyers – is based on the English model.
Early English Parliaments were principally preoccupied with two things – raising taxes for the Royal military machine – and maintaining law and order. Parliament used its powers to enact – and publish - statutes (or ‘acts of Parliament’) which were binding on all citizens – tax laws and laws about crime or keeping the peace.
At the same time, there were many courts in which judges would enforce the tax and criminal laws, (often having to interpret the statutes in the process) and decide on disputes between citizens – eg. disputes about property or claims that someone had harmed or wronged another.
(The distillation of the decisions resolving such disputes is called private law, or civil law.)
The decisions of the judges were not published until early lawyers started collecting and disseminating significant ones to help them prepare cases to go before the courts. These court decisions form what is known as The Common Law.
So we have two main sources of law – legislation and common (or judge-made) law. (Technically there is a 3rd source – that of ‘custom’ – the way things had been done since time out of mind – but most of that has long ago been built into the common law.)

And until the Industrial Revolution, when Parliament starting making laws on matters other than just taxes or crime, most of the law was Common Law – judge-made law.
In fact - in spite of the huge amount of legislation that now rules our lives - there are still plenty of areas of daily life in which Parliament has not legislated – attributing ownership to lost property like our iPod is one of them.

So how does this ‘Common Law’ work and where is it?
It now works like this. A judge, in reasoning his or her way to a decision, applies statements of principle that have been developed by earlier courts. Such as “a person who finds a lost item has more rights to it than anyone except the true owner”. This principle comes from a case decided in 1722.
And until a court of suitable higher authority - such as a court of appeal – or Parliament (by statute) amends or overrules that old decision – it remains The Law. This process is known as The Doctrine of Precedent – it is designed to give stability and predictability to the law – based on principles established in the course of resolving real-life disputes.
To research the Common Law you need a library of published, selected court decisions (known as Law Reports) - ideally going back to about 1600.
And it is complicated by the fact that Australia, NZ, Canada and the USA all took on board the English case law system. And if a NZ court is faced with a problem which has no clear solution based on previous NZ cases, the judge will accept legal argument based on court decisions from all of those countries (plus England/Wales of course).

It is only only in the last few years that any of these decisions have become freely available (in a raw form) on the Web – more of that later.

Thanks heavens that when it comes to legislation we no longer have to cope with English statutes as well as our own – we now rely entirely on statutes from the NZ Parliament – although many statutes – such as our copyright laws, are heavily based on English models.

So, getting back to the i-Pod sitting on the Desk – how do you, in Winton or Te Anau find out whether it is covered by NZ statutes or by the Common Law?

Or, more generally, how do you try to assist someone to find out what the law is – or what their legal rights are – in a particular instance?

(Of course, the simple answer is: visit a lawyer or a Community Law Centre – but people often want to get a feel for the law first. Or they may be wanting to fly solo – to prepare their own case or to find a corrective to a court case in which they feel they did not get their just desserts. )

Strategy 1: start with a simple secondary source. (I guess I should explain that lawyers refer to legislation and case law as Primary Sources – actual statements of law. Anything else – journal articles, textbooks, dictionaries and encyclopedias – is a Secondary Source.

At this point you might be tempted try Wikipedia; the problem is that legal articles on Wikipedia are likely to be slanted to an American audience – or at least are unlikely to give the full and true NZ picture.
So for a simple NZ secondary source?
You should all have a recent edition of the Butterworths NZ Law Dictionary. It will almost always help you get started and will often alert you to a relevant statute or a key case. Let’s try looking under ‘lost property’ …(nothing there, so let’s think of a related term: ‘finding’… gives a bit of help. By the way, at the back is a handy list of some legal abbreviations and what they mean.

The only NZ legal encylopedia (Laws of New Zealand) is in about 35 regularly updated volumes and is way beyond the wallet of a small public library.

Probably the most wide-ranging up-to-date secondary source for public library use is Know your rights : a practical guide to the law for every New Zealand household / Catriona MacLennan , 2006
It is more up-to-date than Tim McBride’s well known New Zealand civil rights handbook, 2001 (now getting a bit dated and to be used with caution)

There are also various introductory textbooks on NZ law – usually designed for tertiary education courses – useful background, but usually not much use for real life practical problems.
Eg. Mulholland’s Introduction to the New Zealand Legal System

On the web, you might find guidance from a wide-ranging public-assistance site like ‘LawAccess’ on the Legal Services Agency site – it includes an excellent glossary of legal terms. Sometimes it leads to sites with web-based information – sometimes it just gives contact details or details of books and brochures.
Two sites which provide short articles or overviews of the law – written by lawyers – not always particularly up-to-date - are
FindLawNew Zealand and HowToLaw –
Both sites provide short pieces on practical legal matters, often with links which encourage you to consult a lawyer.

Strategy 2: Find a detailed textbook on the subject.
There are three main legal publishers in NZ – Brookers, CCH, and LexisNexis. Their websites include catalogues of their publications.
The handout gives you a fairly complete list of possibly relevant books in print – but ignoring the often very expensive and voluminous looseleaf works - usually designed for lawyers and judges and universities. I’ve asterisked some that could be particularly pertinent for most small libraries. You might want to consider buying something for subjects that often surface in your particular community – Family law, for example; perhaps Criminal law and Medical law. (You’ll see that the handout is organised in a self-indexing way, based on keywords in the book titles.)
One of the problems with legislation and case law is that it is not published in a subject-oriented way – and of course it is continually changing.
The great virtue of a textbook is that it should integrate discussion of all the relevant legislation and court decisions on the full range of subheadings within a subject. But bear in mind that no printed text can be fully up-to-date.
The actual text of legislation will often be included. (In fact there is a class of books which does nothing except reprint the legislation on a topic. I’ve excluded those from the handout.)
A word of warning -
Be aware that indexes to law books can be baffling; they tend to use legal jargon – and they often consist of just a few broad headings, with detailed subheadings. (Often baffling if you don’t have legal training.)

Strategy 3: Finding an ‘article’
I wouldn’t normally recommend looking for articles on legal topics, because they are likely to be either too general (eg something in The Listener) or too technical or academic. The database Index New Zealand does index major NZ legal journals, but would mainly be of use for finding expert commentary on a recent court decision or on the likely impact of new legislation.
For this you might also find material on the web sites of the big law firms (eg Chapman Tripp; Bell Gully; Russell McVeagh) they like to put up solid articles about recent legal developments – aimed often at the corporate client. There’s no easy way of restricting your search to such sources but a well constructed Google search should flush out that sort of material. Eg: zealand and (law or legal) and ‘topic’

Strategy 4: If you really must dive straight into the legislation:
At the moment the only general subject index to NZ statutes and regulations is the looseleaf Index to NZ Statutes published by LexisNexisNZ (previously known as Butterworths) – probably too expensive for a small public library .
LexisNexis publish several versions of New Zealand legal words and phrases (latest bound issue appears to be 2001).
This can be a useful shortcut into the statutes as well as alerting you to key cases which have interpreted a word or phrase. It is not a subject index – it tells you in which statutes or cases a particular word or phrase has been defined.

Of course NZ legislation is now freely searchable on the Web at the PAL (Public Access to Legislation) site. But of course, free text searching on the entire statute book can produce daunting numbers of hits.
Better to use a textbook to find out what statute is relevant to your query, then go to it using the contents list at the PAL website.
Warning – always be aware that legislation is a technical form of literature, with its own special rules of construction and interpretation. A common-sense reading will often not be a correct legal interpretation. And the complexity can be astounding. Has anyone had a look at the new ‘simplified’ income tax legislation?

Strategy 5: Finding actual court decisions: (case law)
Only a tiny amount of NZ case law is as yet available freely on the web. (The key NZ site is http://www.nzlii.org/) – with decisions of the Supreme Court; Court of Appeal: 1999-; High Court: Ag 2005- ; and a rapidly increasing amount of material from various administrative tribunals, such as the Broadcasting Standards Tribunal.
NZLII is not authoritative or complete but it is easy to search using Boolean operators.
Again, be aware that reading and interpreting cases is a professional skill.

One of the common queries we field at the University Law Library is from people – sometimes family historians – who want to find details of some famous case or another – often a sensational murder trial. The answer usually is that the published law reports are usually only interested in providing lawyers and judges with access to court decisions which create or modify the principles of the law – and most famous trials are simply applying well-established legal doctrines. So they are not published in the law reports. Usually, the only available accounts will be those in the newspapers of the day.

Now, thinking for a moment about some of the ethical aspects of helping your clients;
Here are some cautionary words:
Remember that you are not a qualified lawyer. So you must be very careful that your client is under no illusions that you might be providing legal advice. To do so would be opening yourself up to the potential for being sued.
- Just be careful to point out that you are not providing legal advice.
- Interpreting legislation and case law is a job for experts – even if you think you can make sense of it – don’t trust yourself unless you have a law degree. For example – just because a statute has been published does not mean that it is ‘in force’. It can be difficult even for experts to find out when a statute is going to take effect.

- you must always be aware that there may be recent legislation or cases which change the picture you have found

- be particularly wary of clients wanting help with preparing their own legal documents - it can be done, and some websites and books go into that level of detail, but in general terms it is strictly for the professionals.

I would imagine you don’t get many legal information queries from your local lawyers? They will usually have their own small library and they also have access to their local district law society library (eg the Otago District Law Society in Dunedin)

If you want to learn more about legal research and legal literature, I’ve given a couple of references in the handout. And there are also pointers to key web sites, including parliament, The Knowledge Basket, etc.
My email address is on the handout – do feel free to contact me with queries.

And the fate of the i-Pod? The case law has lots of ins and outs. For example, the answer may depend on whether it was found in a public part of the library or not ; and what you do next might depend on whether you have notices disclaiming responsibility for lost property. You certainly need to note what was found and who found it (and how to contact them again).
Basically – it is ‘Finders Keepers’ – as long as reasonable efforts are made to find the true owner.

Alan Edwards
Law Librarian
University of Otago
Dunedin

9 March 2007





Accessing the Law from Smaller Libraries

Web sites

Overviews of resources:

www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/New_Zealand.htm (Margaret Greville’s detailed
2005 page on NZ law and resources (print and electronic))
www.library.otago.ac.nz/subjectguides/lawnz.php (‘P’ = free public sites)


Practical help and introductory articles

www.lawaccess.lsa.govt.nz/ (glossary & links to 150 sites of practical information)
www.findlaw.com/12international/countries/nz/index.html (short articles)
www.howtolaw.co.nz/ (answers to many common queries)
www.lsa.govt.nz/ (legal aid and advice; community law centres)
http://www.keepingitlegal.net.nz/ (legislation affecting community organisations)
www.courts.govt.nz/family/home.asp (family court matters)
www.ird.govt.nz/ (taxation)
http://www.consumer.org.nz/ (‘legal rights’ link)
www.library.otago.ac.nz/pdf/anzla_1995.pdf (meanings of legal abbreviations)
www.nz-lawsoc.org.nz/ (pamphlets; Code of Ethics; complaints)
http://www.adls.org.nz/ Includes ‘Find a lawyer’ and ‘Law firm websites’ for NZ


Key resource sites

www.legislation.govt.nz/ (current, updated, statutes and regulations)
www.knowledge-basket.co.nz/gpprint/docs/welcome.html (bills)
www.nzlii.org/ (searchable recent decisions of higher courts and some tribunals)
www.justice.govt.nz/pubs/reports/2006/directory-of-official-information/index.html
(Directory of Official Information)
www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/ (Parliament – Hansard, Select Committees, etc)




Printed resources
There are many ‘handbooks’ which tend to be little more than reprinted legislation on the subject; they have not been listed here.
The more detailed ‘legal practitioner’ works are provided in looseleaf or electronic forms and tend to be very expensive; they are not listed here.
For public use, textbooks are probably a more practical purchase. Prices excludes GST.
Asterisked items are probably ‘musts’ for the smallest library.
Publishers websites include catalogues: Brookers: www.brookers.co.nz/
CCH NZ: www.cch.co.nz/ LexisNexis NZ: http://www.lexisnexis.co.nz/

Textbooks and similar:
Legal Research and Writing, 3rd ed/ Margaret Greville et al, LexisNexis NZ, 2006
ISBN: 9780408718240 $85
*Butterworths New Zealand law dictionary / by Peter Spiller. LexisNexis NZ, 2005.
ISBN: 0408717939 $82
*Know your rights: a practical guide to the law for every New Zealand household /
Catriona MacLennan ,Penguin, 2006. ISBN: 9780143020431 $29.99
*Law Directory 2007, Brookers, 2007 ISBN: 0-86472-59-8 $ 78.40
New Zealand legal words and phrases. Consolidated index - 2001 / Butterworths, 2001.
ISBN: 0408716347 $?

Arbitration in New Zealand, 2d ed/ A.A.P Willy, LexisNexis NZ, 2003
ISBN: 978 0408716888 $92.40
Tyree’s Banking Law in New Zealand, 2d ed/ Alan L Tyree, LexisNexis NZ, 2003
ISBN: 9780408715089 $119 ?
The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act: A Commentary/ A S Butler, LexisNexis NZ, 2005
ISBN: 0408716398 $160
Care of Children in New Zealand/ by Lex de Jong et al Brookers, 2005
ISBN: 0-86472-541-8 $ 86.00
Principles of Civil Procedure, 2d ed/ by Andrew Beck, Brookers, 2001
ISBN: 086472 417 9 $ 84.00
Civil Remedies in New Zealand/ by Rt Hon Justice Peter Blanchard et al, Brookers, 2003
ISBN: 086472 4446 $ 176.00
New Zealand civil rights handbook / Tim McBride, Legal Information Service, 2001.
ISBN: 0473074532 $59.95
Good Faith in Collective Bargaining/ Geoff Davenport and Judy Brown, LexisNexis
NZ, 2002 ISBN: 0408716649 $100
Butterworths Introduction to Commercial Law/ John Burrows et al, LexisNexis NZ,
2005 ISBN: 0408718072 $135
Understanding Commercial Law, 5th ed/ Philippa Gerbic, LexisNexis NZ, 2006
ISBN: 0408718579 $76 ?
Closely Held Companies - Legal and Tax issues/ Robert Dugan et al, CCH NZ, May
2000. ISBN: 0 86475 486 8 $130.00
Constitutional and Administrative Law in New Zealand, 2d ed./ Philip A Joseph Brookers, 2001 ISBN: 0 86472 399 7 $148
Construction Law in New Zealand/ Master Kennedy-Grant, LexisNexis NZ, 1999
ISBN: 0409 702250 $118
Consumer Credit/ Bill Bevan, LexisNexis NZ, 2005 ISBN: 9780408717977 $76
An Introduction to the Law of Contract in New Zealand/ by Maree Chetwin et al, 4th ed,
Thomson/Brookers, 2006 ISBN: 0-86472-5555-8 $88
Law of Contract in New Zealand, 3rd ed/ J F Burrows, et al, LexisNexis NZ, 2007 $125
Conveyancing Law Handbook, 2d ed/ Nicholas Drake et al, CCH NZ, 2003
ISBN: 0 86475 571 6 $90.00
Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance in New Zealand/ by Christopher Birkinshaw,
Brookers, 2005 ISBN: 0-86472-495-0 $ 68.00
*Adams on Criminal Law (4th student ed)/ by The Hon Justice J Bruce Robertson et al,
Brookers, 2005 ISBN: 0-86472-502-7 $ 114.67
Principles of Criminal Law, 2d ed/ Andrew Simester, Brookers, 2002
ISBN: 0864 724217 $ 104.00
Duties and Responsibilities of Directors and Company Secretaries in New Zealand/
Andrew Borrowdale, CCH NZ, 2004 ISBN: 0 86475 $88.00
The Disputes Tribunals of New Zealand, 2d ed,/ by Peter Spiller, Brookers, 2003
ISBN: 086472 443 8 $ 40.00
A Guide to E-Commerce/ by Simpson Grierson's x-tech group, Brookers, 2002
ISBN: 0864724284 $ 94.50
Electronic Commerce in Plain English/Don McIlroy, LexisNexis NZ, 1999
ISBN: 0408 715642 $35.50
Employment Dispute Resolution/ Phillip Green, LexisNexis NZ, 2002
ISBN: 0408716681 $68
*New Zealand Employment Law Guide 2007/ Richard Rudman CCH NZ, 2007
ISBN: 9780864756985 $56.00
LexisNexis Employment Law Guide, 7th ed/ G Anderson, LexisNexis NZ, 2005
ISBN: 040871056 $130
Handbook of Environmental Law/ ed by Rob Harris, Royal Forest and Bird Protection
Society of New Zealand Inc., 2004. ISBN: 0-95978-518-3 $ 67.50
Environmental and Resource Management Law, 3rd ed/ Derek Nolan, LexisNexis
NZ, 2005 ISBN: 0408716789 $140
Equity and Trusts in New Zealand/ by Andrew Butler et al, Brookers, 2003
ISBN: 086472 354 7 $136
Ethics - Professional Responsibility and the Lawyer, 2d ed, Duncan Webb, LexisNexis
NZ, 2005 ISBN: 0408 717238 $92
Cross on Evidence, 8th ed/ D L Mathieson, LexisNexis NZ, 2005 ISBN: 0408718064
$135.00
*Family Law in New Zealand, 12th ed, P R H Webb et al, LexisNexis NZ, 2005
ISBN: 0408718250 $138
Guidelines for Family Mediation - Developing Services in Aotearoa – NZ/ National
Working Party on Mediation, LexisNexis NZ, 1996 ISBN: 9780408714570 $30
Law of Family Protection and Testamentary Promises, 3rd ed/ W M Patterson, LexisNexis
NZ, 2004 ISBN: 0408716924 $115 excl GST
The Essential Guide to Financial Planning in NZ/ Roger Spiller, CCH NZ, 2000,
ISBN: 0 86475 476 0 $195.00
A-Z of Food Safety/ John D Brooks, CCH NZ, 2000 ISBN: 0 86475 496 5 $137.78
GST - A practical guide, 7th ed/ Alastair McKenzie CCH NZ, 2002, ISBN: 0 86475 560 0
$80.00
A Practical Guide to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act/ by Theresa Le
Bas et al, DSL Publishing, 2005 ISBN: 0-86472-459-4 $ 88.00
Health Care and the Law, 3rd NZ ed/ Sue Johnson, Brookers, 2004
ISBN: 086472 463 2 $107.99
Guide to Holidays and Leave,2d ed/ Kiely Thompson Caisley. CCH NZ, 2006
ISBN: 0 86475 632 1 $79.95
Intellectual Property Law/ Paul Sumpter, CCH NZ, 2006 ISBN: 0 86475 617 8 $79.95
Intellectual Property in New Zealand/ Susy Frankel and Geoff McLay, LexisNexis NZ,
2002 ISBN: 0408715065 $112
internet.law.nz - Selected Issues, 2d ed/ David Harvey, LexisNexis NZ, 2005
ISBN: 0408718137 $125
Butterworths Land Law in New Zealand/ G W Hinde et al. LexisNexis NZ, 1997
ISBN: 0408 714514 $166.50
McVeagh's Land Valuation & Property Law, 8 ed/ R D Mulholland, LexisNexis NZ,
1994 ISBN: 0409 790168 $136
A New Zealand Legal History, 2d ed/ by Peter Spiller et al, Brookers, 2001
ISBN: 086472 418 7 $?
A Guide to the Local Government Act 2002/ by Jonathan Salter, Vivienne Wilson,
Brookers/DSL, 2003, ISBN: 0864 724 500 $ 76.50
Maori Land Law, 2d/ Richard Boast et al, LexisNexis NZ, 2004
ISBN: 0408716916 $90 excl GST
Medical Law in New Zealand/ by P D G Skegg et al, Brookers, 2006
ISBN: 0-86472-572-8 $176
*Meetings: Practice and Procedure in New Zealand, 3rd Ed/ Roger Pitchforth, CCH NZ
1999 ISBN: 0 86475 400 0 $80.00
*Mental Health Law in New Zealand, 2d ed/ by Sylvia Bell, Brookers, 2005
ISBN: 0-86472-534-5 $ 84.00
Law of Mortgages of Land in New Zealand/ P T Young, LexisNexis NZ, 1995
ISBN: 0409 702404 $176
Guidebook to New Zealand Personal Property Securities Law/ Barry Allan, CCH NZ,
2002 ISBN: 0 86475 530 9 $80.00
[Personal Property Securities Act] PPSA: A Conceptual Approach, rev ed/ Linda
Widdup, LexisNexis NZ, 2002 ISBN: 0408716738 $80
Personal Property Securities in New Zealand/ by Mike Gedye et al, Brookers, 2002
ISBN: 0864 724 322 $ 148.00
Garrow & Fenton: The Law of Personal Property in New Zealand/ Roger Fenton,
LexisNexis NZ, 1999 ISBN: 0409 788422 $140
Relationship Property on Death/ by Andrew Beck et al Brookers, 2004.
ISBN: 0 86472 477 2 $ 84.00
*Residential Tenancies, 3 ed/ Andrew Alston, LexisNexis NZ, 1998
ISBN: 0408 714697 $56
Rights and freedoms : the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Human Rights
Act 1993/ by Grant Huscroft et al, Brookers, 1995 ISBN: 0-086472-178-1 $?
[Sports and clubs] Winning the Red Tape Game/ by Paul David et al, Brookers, 2005
ISBN: 0-86472-530-2 $ 44.00
*Staples Tax Guide (2007 Edition)/by Craig Macalister et al, Brookers, 2007
ISBN: 0-86472-573-8 $ 124.00
2007 New Zealand Master Tax Guide, CCH NZ, 2007, ISBN: 9780864756527 $136.00
Guide to Taxing Internet Transactions/ Jillian Lawry, CCH NZ, 2000
ISBN: 0 86475 456 6 $72.00
New Zealand Master Trusts Guide, 2d ed/ John Brown, CCH NZ, 2005
ISBN: 0 86475 543 0 $72.00
Nevill’s Law of Trusts, Wills and Administration in New Zealand, 9th ed/ N Richardson,
LexisNexis NZ, 2004 ISBN: 0408714778 $95
Garrow and Kelly Law of Trusts and Trustees,6th ed/ N Kelly et al, LexisNexis NZ, 2005
ISBN: 040871638X $135.00
Trusts and Relationship Property/ by Kerry Ayers Brookers, 2003,
ISBN: 086472 464 0 $ 76.00
The Law of Torts in New Zealand/ by Stephen Todd et al, 4th ed, Brookers, 2005
ISBN: 0-86472-512-4 $ 168.00
Workplace Stress in New Zealand/by Andrew Scott-Howman, Brookers, 2003
ISBN: 0-86472-453-5 $ 68.00

Alan Edwards
Law Library, University of Otago
March 2007
alan.edwards@otago.ac.nz

Both Sides of the Desk – the connections between work in a library and as a writer.

Both Sides of the Desk – the connections between work in a library and as a writer.

Introduction:

For those who don’t know me. My name is Carolyn McCurdie. I have worked as a library assistant at Blueskin Bay library since 1999. I began writing seriously in 1991, beginning with adult short stories, and succeeding in getting some of these published and broadcast. But it was only while working in the library that I began to consider writing for children, and in 2006 my first children’s novel ‘The Unquiet’ was published by Longacre Press. It is an adventure fantasy aimed at 10 to 14 year olds, and it’s just been included on Storylines list of notable books for 2007.


The process of writing feels to me like any sort of growth process, whether a plant, the development of a person’s life, or any other creative activity. If like a plant, it’s more like a wild plant than one deliberately cultivated, no matter how deliberate and disciplined you are with your writing and no matter how hard you work to cultivate and develop your work. The precise beginnings are still unknowable. Seeds are sown in subterranean places. How many seeds, and when, can probably never be fully known.
It’s as if some part of us exists in a dreaming time, the place where mythology begins, and here we do important work. I find useful the Jungian ideas of the unconscious and the collective unconscious, because as well as the gathering and planning that our dreaming minds do, I think we also connect with the dreaming of other people. We share in the collective mind of our own culture and also in the collective mind of humanity. This is one way that I use to try to explain the inexplicable magic of the writing process. I often feel that I’m drawing on the thoughts and experience of other people. It’s from beyond the narrow confines of my own life. There are other metaphors of course, and each metaphor is useful. But the reality is simply that gathering, thinking, and planning happen in some hidden way. They are sometimes obvious when we look back and we see a pattern, even an intent, that we knew nothing about at the time.
Books are part of this dream time, and of the unconscious becoming conscious. I can’t think of anything that represents the collective consciousness of a culture quite like a library. It’s where that consciousness has been gathered in for the purpose of being shared out. And behind all of that consciousness, is the unconscious. When as readers we find a book that touches us at some deep place, we experience a profound link with that writer and with our common humanity. Allowing that link is part of what books do, and part of what libraries do.


‘The Unquiet’

Much of the experience of writing ‘The Unquiet’ felt to me like this dreaming process, some of it accumulated over a long time, even my entire life, and some of it offered to me, almost on a daily basis by virtue of my working in Blueskin Bay Library. We are privileged, working in libraries. We can have a particular, intimate relationship with books, so that our conversations with them have the time and space to develop. Probably many borrowers have the experience when the book that they need at a particular point in their life, is there, saying ‘here I am’. This can happen to us more often when we work among the books. Shelving is great for this. While shelving books in the library, particular books gave me what I needed to write ‘The Unquiet’.

The first book, encountered while shelving, was by the Tasmanian children’s writer Sally Odgers. It was ‘Storytrack, A Practical Guide to Writing for Children.’ I flicked through it idly, convinced at the time that I could never write for children, because I had no children of my own. Sally Odgers disagrees with this assumption, and in my flicking I saw that she had a whole section dealing with it. I took the book out.
In her book she quotes her own experience and that of other writers. She does test her stories on her own children. The story most loved by one of her children has never been accepted by a publisher. Another story that he hated became a best seller. In the end, the judgement must be her own judgement, and she believes that the child she writes for is the child she used to be. Many, if not most children’s writers, she says, write for this child.
I thought of the movie ‘Shadowlands’ about the writer C. S. Lewis. In it, someone accuses Lewis of knowing no children. ‘I used to be a child,’ he says. Well, me too. I seem to be the sort of person who needs to get permission to do things. Sally Odgers gave me permission to write for children.

Then, what to write about? I had no idea. The answer was given to me by Terry Pratchett. My entire plot, summarised, is contained in the title of his book (encountered again while shelving) ‘Only You Can Save Mankind’. Every time I saw this title it made me laugh. I loved its outrageousness. But I had to look at it many times before its message finally got through. As a child this is exactly the sort of plot that I loved. Whether reading ‘Superman’ comics, or the Narnia books, I imagined myself, noble and brave, rescuing the world from some terrible fate. So this would be my story.

These two books gave me practical advice, and their approach to me was quite direct. The next important book came via the unconscious. It gave my story its soul and power, and so the unconscious was the only route. Long before I had considered writing for children I had seen ‘Wahine Toa, Women of Maori Myth’ by Patricia Grace and had so loved the illustrations by Robyn Kahukiwa, that after borrowing the book, I had gone out and bought a copy for myself. I had no idea that these illustrations had lodged themselves so deeply in my imagination, nor that they would have any part to play in my story, until I was well into writing the book. Then to a large extent those images, changed in my imagination to become my own, took over. It was as if the rational part of my mind had little to do with it. Characters from ‘Wahine Toa’, from the drawings of Maui and Muriranga-whenua, simply arrived. ‘Here we are,’ they said. ‘This story is about us.’ To accommodate such personalities I had to begin all over again and create a story that gave them the space they demanded. They were not my characters. We collaborated.

The library offered more help in the writing of the novel than just the opportunity to shelve books. I was lucky enough to go to a talk about boys and books with the Australian writer of young adult novels, James Maloney. From him I learned about structure. He told a story that stuck in my mind. He’d been trying to interest a bright student in reading and had found, he thought, the perfect book. ‘Read this,’ he said. ‘You’ll love it.’ Two days later the book plonked back through the return slot. ‘Why?’ he asked the teenager. ‘I tried it,’ said the student. ‘But I got to page 3, and nothing had happened.’
‘After that,’ said James Maloney, ‘when I wrote my own books, I made sure something happened on the first page.’
So taking his advice, when I wrote ‘The Unquiet’ I made sure that something happened on the first line. ‘Pluto has disappeared,’ said Mrs Rex.
And thinking of James Maloney, I also made sure that my chapters were short, and that each one ended, if not on a cliff edge, at least with a teaser leading into the next chapter.

So many books teaching so many things. From Philip Pullman I learned about the possibilities of the imagination. After reading his dark material trilogy, I realised that the key was to be fearless. Let there be no rules.

Then there are the connections with people. A writer needs to be an appalling eavesdropper. Skulking around the shelves, standing quietly behind the desk, gives you every opportunity to listen to conversations, the patterns of speech, and train your ear to appreciate the music of dialogue.
At Blueskin Bay we run children’s book clubs every fortnight. The children talk about the books they’ve been reading, and for me, listening, I have learned much that is invaluable about what they like and don’t like, and about the personalities of the readers I hoped to speak to in my book. While I was writing it, I had a visual picture of two particular girls, one a serious, omnivorous reader, and the other energetic and impatient. I imagined I was writing for them. If I could gain the respect of one and hold the attention of the other, I thought that I would be achieving what I set out to do. I found this imagining of a very specific audience a great practical help.

Since publication of ‘The Unquiet’ I have had many reasons to be glad that I work in a library. Firstly, all my co-workers love books, and I have had overwhelming support from so many of them, especially Louise and the team at Blueskin Bay. This has meant a lot to me. Secondly, the constant sight of shelves and shelves of books gives me a valuable sense of proportion. My book is just one small part of a huge whole. I can’t get too carried away by my own importance. And working in a library provides daily demonstrations of the fact that there is no book that is loved by all. One person’s must-read is another’s waste of shelf space. That helps when I read a negative review. I’m not too crushed to know that my book hasn’t connected with that particular person.
One of the themes of ‘The Unquiet’ is the importance of the imagination. Through it, we connect with other cultures and life experiences, with nature, and it helps us to rise above our own limitations. I loved what Rachel said about this yesterday morning. Without imagination, I believe we cannot be fully human. This links in with the whole ethos of libraries. In a library we try to gather the world’s best works of the imagination, and we try to ensure that they are available to all, so that they can enrich and nurture everyone. There is much in social living that is just as important, but I believe there is nothing that’s more important. It is to do with the human soul. In this, the work that I do on both sides of the library desk are essentially one. And both help me, as a human being, to thrive.

Carolyn's Session

Carolyn's session

Photo of the Venue

The South Otago High School Library, the main venue for the Weekend School.

Photos from Weekend School

The Weekend School Committee. From left: Lyn, Mike, Louise, Mark and Vicki. Absent: Helen and Linda

More Papers on the Otago Southland LIANZA Web Pages

Be sure to check out the LIANZA website for the other Weekend School papers at: http://www.lianza.org.nz/about/profile/regions/otago/wkndschoolpapers.html

Google's Librarian Central

Google's Librarian Central: http://librariancentral.blogspot.com/

Your Feedback from the Weekend School

Plus

• LIANZA wesite - access to reports on all sessions which allows for further discussion to continue
• The opportunity to share knowledge and make contacts
• Strong programme with wide width of content
• Welcoming and inclusive
• Great support
• Good venue
• Great start with Rachel

Minus

• Time constraints for discussion
• Book Hospital - excellent but needed more time
• Difficult choices
• Sometimes difficult to hear especially Rachel
• Technology issues
• Too much on some overheads
• Would like copies from other sessions
• Needed more time for some sessions e.g. book mending, digital images

Interesting

• A small rural library library CAN contribute to the wider library world
• ICT - such an important part of the library in our world today
• "Don't apologies for what you read."
• "Facing new wave of colonisation of the mind
• Interview 12 men what they want
• Are libraries geared more towards women's culture

Web 2.0

Blogs

Blogger - www.blogspot.com

Dunedin Public Libraries Reviews - http://dunedinpubliclibraries.blogspot.com/

Dunedin Public Libraries News - http://dunedinlibrariesnews.blogspot.com/

Wikis

Wikipedia - www.wikipedia.com

Social networking

My Space - www.myspace.com

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Photo and Video

Flickr - www.flickr.com/

You Tube - www.youtube.com

RSS and Podcasts

List of RSS REaders - www.newsonfeeds.com/faq/aggregators

Podcasting Directory - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting_directories

Social Bookmarking

del.icio.us - http://del.icio.us/

Library Thing - www.librarything.com

Mashups

Google News - news.google.co.nz

Chat

Skype - www.skype.com

Online Music and Movies

Coke Tunes - www.coketunes.co.nz

iTunes - www.itunes.co.nz

MovieFlix - www.movieflix.com

Caboolture Shire Libraries - http://elibrary.caboolture.qld.gov.au

Web based Apps

GoogleDocs - http://docs.google.com

Community Connections

Connections with your community Louise Sherriff

Paper for the March 2007 Weekend School of the Otago/Southland Region of LIANZA

Introduction

Yesterday we heard about the Rural Community Resource Centre (RCRC) model from Mike. Today I will tell you about similar developments evolving from Turn Off TV Week (TOTVW) since April 2006 to 'Turn on Life' in the Blueskin Bay community and library now and in the future. In a moment we will watch a movie about that evolution. As you watch, think about your library's role in encouraging community education and empowerment.

Mike talked in some depth on the following headings.

• Community Leadership
• Education
• Library and Community
• Library without Walls
• Social and Economic Capital
  

As you watch the movie try to make the connections between these headings and how they fit into your library environment.

Movie (20 minutes)

The Blueskin Bay library (BBL) is the smallest community library of the Dunedin Public Libraries network and is 20 km north of Dunedin.

The Blueskin Bay library serves a community of approximately 2000 people with an eclectic but coherent mix of ethnicities and lifestyles. The library has adapted to demographic changes in the community by expanding its traditional role and seeking avenues to become more engaged in community initiatives. Hence the library’s coordination of the Blueskin Bay Turn Off TV Week (TOTVW) that has been run for five years by an enthusiastic local team. The idea originated from the international TOTVW movement based in America. Such initiatives are important for rural libraries, where the communities they serve have experienced significant contractions in local and central government services - the library is the sole remaining local government based facility.

The coordination of TOTVW required considerable community engagement, with the community running the workshops, and the library organising and providing speakers, venues, and publicity. Involvement with TOTVW has allowed the library to expand the range of services it offers to its community, whilst also retaining its more fundamental roles. Various spin-off activities that will occur during the year are a mural project, a discussion series run in conjunction with the local Church, and compiling a documentary tracing the history and development of Blueskin Bay TOTVW. Direct library benefits have been an increase in visitor numbers and the offering of a more diverse range of community services.

TOTVW has enabled us to build enduring and mutually beneficial relationships within the community - an essential requirement of a rural Library[1]

Discussion

Community Leadership

First of all, Mike spoke yesterday about the need for community library staff to become involved with their community and to keep their finger on the community's pulse. In order to do this we need to involve ourselves with the key committees at the heart of the community and become active participants.

Such involvement guards against parallel developments and encourages multi purpose facilities for a variety of community needs. Being a member of a variety of groups’ means you can make connections to help to knit the community together. Below are some examples of our involvement at BBL.

• Blueskin Bay TOTVW convener
• Blueskin A&P committee member – actively involved with the annual clearing sale and family fun day
• Waitati Hall secretary – the library is next door to the hall, we take the hall bookings and use the hall for many of our programmes
• Blueskin History Steering Committee secretary
• Blueskin Youth hall committee member – encourage their facilities to be multi-purpose and close to the library. Our young people need to be noticed
• Blueskin Media committee member
• Close liaison with the Waikouaiti Coast Community Board
• Blueskin Bay Library Extension Steering Committee member

Education

To recap on what Mike said yesterday, we need to look for institutions in our wider communities that we can form collaborative partnerships with. Some of these include schools, polytechnics, REAP, marae and whare. Looking back 100 years, many of our library roots started from Mechanics Institutes and Mutual Improvement Associations. Blueskin Bay Library itself started as a Mutual Improvement Association in 1867. Part of their constitution stated that:

“…to promote religious, moral and intellectual improvement of the district in whatever we may be conducive to the end…That at each meeting of the Association a lecture, essay, a reading be or a debate be held.”

Six months of lectures followed including a lecture on “The Henpecked husband.”[2]

We have much to learn from our public library beginnings.

Below are some examples of partnerships in their early inception stages.

• Possible partnership between Dunedin Public Libraries and the Otago Polytechnic's (OP) Community Learning Centres - There are many synergies, resources and connections that could be shared between Dunedin Public Libraries and the Polytechnic's Community Learning Centres. The libraries would provide the space and OP the computers and expertise.
• Multidisciplinary Polytechnic Project with building BBL extension
• Worm Farm project – could develop into a community garden outside the library

Library and Community

As Mike discussed yesterday the boundaries between the library and the community are often blurred. The library plays a key role in the informational, educational and social well being of the community. However, it is easy to assume that we know what the community wants. For example, we organised several programmes at Blueskin Bay library with a very poor attendance. Now, we actively listen and survey our customers before planning any programmes. An example of this is the Men’s wellness series that Mike is planning to run during the winter. He has questioned the needs of various men from the community and found them different to his expectation. Watch this space.

Other examples of the library and the community working together are listed below.

• Blueskin Amnesty International monthly meetings held at the library
• Current Lenten studies on ‘Finding God among the poets’
• Library staff encouraged to work a regular time slot at their local Citizens Advice Bureau
• Investigation of a monthly time slot where the local Justice of the Peace can deal with any issues the community may have in a room adjacent to the library.

Sometimes we act as a bridge until another group in the community captures the vision and runs with it. Often the need arises that we facilitate an event and another group carries on the idea. This is a time to rejoice, the community is sharing the vision!

Library without walls

We are taking our library to the community because a good proportion of our users are isolated. For example, travelling distances from the Blueskin Bay Library to Evansdale is five kilometres, to Warrington eight kilometres and to Seacliff thirteen kilometres. Also, there is no footpath between Waitati and the other communities of the bay. State Highway One only connects them, where the traffic is fast and constant. Given the cost of petrol, people in the distant reaches of the district now think twice about using their cars. Generally the whole population of the area practises conservation values in terms of use of their vehicles and so they walk where practicable or thumb a lift. Public transport is virtually non-existent in the district. Therefore, the BBL is planning to take a collection of items over to Warrington as a trial, using a laptop with radio connection to issue material.

• Loans to the Blueskin Bay community
• Warrington Children’s Book Club
• Warrington Play Centre
• Visit during the day for senior citizens with tea and coffee provided with maybe a speaker
• An evening visit with a particular theme e.g. Poetry evening, coincide with a speaker and include themed items
• Satellite collections at the whare, two play centres and Warrington School
• Using the laptop as a teaching tool to show people how to place holds, search the catalogue and use the library’s databases remotely
• Using the laptop at community events e.g. at the Blueskin A&P Show on 31 March: to issue items, to register people and to teach people how to access the library catalogue from home

Key role in community planning – advancement of Social and economic capital

The people of our communities are our most valuable resource. We need to get to know our communities actively, keeping our ears to the ground and developing sustainable relationships.

There are also many different networks that dwell within our communities. We need to also act as a bridge between the many networks that exist in our communities. Quoting Sally Gaze:

“In many rural villages, there used to be one recognizable shared culture for that community in living memory. The churches were a central part of that culture. Among older villagers and particularly within the churches there is often a sense of nostalgia for that time and even sometimes denial that those times will never return. Today, rural areas are full of people who belong to different ‘networks’ and subcultures. Farmers are a good example of a network culture with common experiences and meetings around livestock or farmer’s markets. Other networks are focused on local schools or on places of work and leisure way beyond the parish boundaries. Different networks present in the countryside have different values and it may be difficult for each small parish church to respond effectively to this diversity.”

Paper for the March 2007 Weekend School of the Otago/Southland Region of LIANZA.

Mike Wooliscroft March 2007

Introduction

In mid 1985 the Commonwealth Secretariat, following an extensive survey of developing countries in the Commonwealth, determined that a practical handbook on establishing rural learning resource centres (RCRCS) for developing countries should be produced. The Secretariat recognised that lack of information and learning opportunities was holding back the development of rural areas world-wide.

Shirley Giggey, a librarian, researcher and consultant who had extensive personal experience in setting up RCRCs, was identified as the best person to produce the manual.

In January 1986 in Malawi, the Commonwealth Secretariat held a workshop with representatives from 12 Commonwealth countries to determine the role of RCRCs and also, significantly, it resolved to:

• collaborate with UNESCO to benefit other than Commonwealth countries
• translate any guide produced into national languages
• promote other workshops
• involve NGOs (non-governmental organisations) in the promotion of the concept of RCRCs. Since that time, the Commonwealth Library Association (COMLA) and other Commonwealth Foundation NGOs such as the Commonwealth Association for Adult Education, have promoted the RCRC concept through Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Mediterranean and Australia in a series of workshops and seminars. [1]

The International Federation of Library Associations has also been supportive of the RCRC concept through its ALP (Advancement of Librarianship in the Third World programme.[2]

Definition

So what is a rural community resource centre?

Giggey in ‘her’ 1988 guide, stated the following:

A resource centre is a place where members of a community can:

• find information about subjects of interest to them
• take part in learning activities
• discuss and share knowledge, information and concerns with extension and other community workers, planners and administrators
• find materials to help them retain their literacy and numeracy skills
• meet to organise and work together on community projects
• use equipment to produce their own informational materials
• enjoy culture and leisure activities.[3]

Benefits of a Rural Community Resource Centre

Giggey identified the benefits of a centre as being to:

• provide information and activities which will help community members acquire the skills, knowledge and confidence to participate more fully in community affairs
• provide information and activities about health, agricultural techniques, business, etc. to assist communities to improve their economic situation
• provide a forum through which governments and other agency workers can be informed about concerns, problems, and reactions of community members to their plans and programmes
• provide support to extension programmes and helping extension workers to coordinate their work in the community
• strengthen a community’s involvement in, and appreciation of, local and national culture
• serve as a focal point for community activities thus enhancing a sense of belonging among community members[4]

An important point to note about Giggey’s guide is that it is just that – a guide, not a manual – it was written to be modified to suit local circumstances. It was designed to be used by a whole variety of people in a community – not just librarians. Indeed, Giggey issued a warning to librarians “not to try to do it on our own”.[5]

The concept of every community being unique and thus shaping its resource centre to meet its own needs and conditions is germane to the concept of an RCRC.

There were some additional premises in addition to those listed above:

• the importance of people doing the day-to-day tasks being chosen from the community by the community
• the necessity of animation of information that is relevant, and usable to what could be a predominantly illiterate society
• the importance of coordination with other agencies working for the improvement of rural life
• the importance of utilising the immense knowledge of those who live in rural communities.
• that at the end of the day the services will only be successful if there is commitment and enthusiasm by all those involved. It is the only way to guarantee that the information available is what is really needed. [6]

You can see from all the above that the RCRC concept is one which:

• aims at improving social and economic capital
• fosters the concept of the civil society and the maintenance of a democracy
• sees the centre as the hub of a learning network throughout the community
• empowers community member
  
• sees the community very much in charge of the direction taken by the RCRC.

The definition of ‘social capital’ used for this paper is that of Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone,[7] and the concept's leading proponent.

Social capital "refers to the collective value of all 'social networks' and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other"[8].

Thus social capital is a key component to building and maintaining democracy. This is a key concern of the Commonwealth Foundation and its many Non-Government Associations (NGOs) of which COMLA is one.

Putnam suggests that social capital is declining in the United States and this is seen in lower levels of trust in government and lower levels of civic participation. Putnam also says that television and urban sprawl have had a significant role in making America far less connected.[9] This is key factor leading to the development of the Turn Off TV Week movement in the United States and then its adoption in the Blueskin Bay Community with the motto – Turn Off TV and Turn on Life, which Louise will talk more of tomorrow.

[For further notes on Social Capital see Annex One]

Leadership

Community leadership of an RCRC is vital. Giggey wrote “It is important to involve local community leaders from the beginning, and make sure you have their approval. If they are not involved they will not give their support or help to solve problems when they arise.” [10]

There is a need to set up a planning or advisory group to meet the learning and information needs of the community. Giggey states that the individuals involved need to be:

• committed to the development of the community
• able to give time to the work of the committee
• responsible people respected by the community
• aware of how much time/energy will be involved.[11]

The librarian’s expectations of an advisory committee must never be that it become a rubber stamp endorsing all proposals put forward. The librarian is better to be a member rather than chair of the advisory group. The librarian is there as an equal alongside other members of the community who carry responsibilities in terms of information, education, and community development.

You will see from the above that the factors, the benefits, the premises of rural community resource centres are entirely simpatico with the best of libraries which:

• are truly community centred,
• have well-oiled networks into their communities which are dynamic and not only used for pushing information out,
• have collaborative ventures with their communities,
• have robust means for evaluating feedback,
• are client-driven,
• seek to maintain, develop, restore and enhance their communities to make them richer societies and places of learning,
• engage with other providers,
• don’t attempt to lead every initiative, but in cooperation with other community members help to set up and sustain programmes but also know when to withdraw and leave the community energies to further develop them as long as they are relevant.

While the concept of rural community resource centres was one principally developed for developing countries it is also clearly a concept relevant to developed countries.

The rural community resource centre concept is evident in countries such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Tomorrow, Louise will talk of the relevance of the RCRC concept to the Blueskin Bay Library and what might be done to enhance it.

Defining Characteristics of Rural Community Resource Centres vis a vis Most Smaller NZ Public Libraries

There are some key factors of RCRCs that are worth examining as to their relevance to the local situation.

The factors are:

• Governance/advisory group
• The adoption of a key educational role including close liaisons with educational providers
• Library is the pulsing heart of the community and distinctions between library and community are blurred / merged
• Library without walls?
• Key role in community planning - advancement of social and economic capital

Governance/Advisory

Let us look at governance first. In New Zealand public libraries are a function of territorial local government - city and district councils. These provide the principal source of their funding, buildings, infrastructure, resources and access, monitor performance against plans, and employ staff, set policy, etc.

Because of local government amalgamation most of New Zealand’s governing bodies are large and often distant from the smaller public libraries they control. Advisory / monitoring committees, similar to RCRC working groups, exist most often with a brief larger than purely library matters.

It is not easy, perhaps, to see a model which might see more local ownership, generous advice and real input into smaller libraries. Yet this has developed, at least to a degree, for the Blueskin Library which is the Dunedin Public Libraries’ smallest unit.

Dunedin Public Libraries as a whole reports through the City Librarian to the Community Development Committee of the Dunedin City Council. There is also the Waikouaiti Coast Community Board containing elected representatives of this larger coastal area to which the Library Services Manager and the BBL Librarian report and take advice to weigh and consider.

As well, at Blueskin Bay, the Librarian has a key role in terms of the Turn Off TV Week working group. Since 2004 she has been its leader. It is at these latter levels between the Community Board and the Turn Off TV Week working group, now developing year-long programmes with the emphasis on switching onto life rather than any potentially accompanying negative message of turning off tv, where we see similarities with the RCRC model of advice.

Marion Bannister, speaking of the New South Wales experience at a conference on rural libraries and community resource centres, emphasises the following:

“… I feel that one of the most important tools that we librarians and community information people must utilise is that of building strong communications networks starting at the most important level, the user. Then being aware of one’s own staff needs to make the library network function effectively. Finally, being politically astute and aware with the people on committees at both local and state government levels who make the decisions that have important ramifications for the funding and continued existence of the library service.”[12]

Education

The really close association of the library with educational goals is critical to fulfil the role of an RCRC. It was often said of New Zealand’s public libraries that they had three key roles – education, information, and recreation. Public libraries were oftentimes called “the poor man’s university”. What poor women did, I don’t know. I jest!

With the rapid development of The Information Age and burgeoning amounts of data and information and the eagerness of librarians to associate themselves with ‘Information’ we must be careful not to underplay the strong educational role that the public library can play. Many public libraries sprang from early Mechanics Institutes and Athenaeums, after all.

When Archie Dunningham was City Librarian, the Dunedin Public Library played a very strong role in education. The harmonious and fruitful partnership between Archie and Peggy, his wife, who was heavily involved in adult and continuing education, was recognised nationally, and is memorialised now in the Dunningham Suite in the Dunedin Public Libraries, central library building.

Sue Pharo, University Librarian at Otago, and I first met one another at the National Conference of the New Zealand Association for Continuing and Community Education when we were both active on the regional and later, national, committees of the same, she as City Librarian at Tauranga and me as City Librarian in Dunedin. It would be good to know how widespread and active the links between public libraries and NZACCE are now, or whether they have been superseded by links with different educational groups.

In the rural areas the REAP (Rural Education Assistance Programmes) programmes have been a vital enabler of rural education in New Zealand. I understand that the one at Alexandra is still active. In the towns, as well as the countryside, tertiary education institutions such as The Open Polytechnic, and regional polytechnics and institutes of technology might be the obvious institutions with which to form links because they offer strong community and vocational programmes.

There is a clear need as Giggey states: “to integrate information/education and services that, as librarians, we alone cannot undertake.”[13]

Louise will talk about the potential for twinning with the Otago Polytechnic tomorrow.

I wonder, too, whether the concept of the school/community library concept successfully developed in New Zealand could not be more often employed in some rural and semi-rural areas to enhance the educational role of the public library, strengthen collections, and make the school library resources available all year round.[14]

Library and Community

In the RCRC model, the distinctions between the library and community are blurred. There has been discussion within Dunedin Public Libraries recently about what is ’library’ and what is ‘community’. This discussion will no doubt continue and it will be interesting to see how it develops. What I wish to say here is that in RCRCs there is no clear line and certainly no gap between the two. The Library is an integral part of the informational, educational, and socially binding functions of an RCRC, providing and accessing resources, co-planning and managing, and often providing the venue for and facilitation of these community functions.

A word of caution… we need to be careful, as proactive enthusiastic librarians, not to assume that we know what the community wants without actually testing that. It is all too easy to provide programmes which look enticing, and on the surface relevant, but which in fact draw only library staff, their close friends and family – the ‘rabbits’ friends and relations’ syndrome. As Diana Rosenberg, Dean of the Faculty of Information Services at Moi University states:

“… the failure of various attempts to set up rural libraries [and their programmes] arose because the demand for such services did not come from the rural communities themselves. More research therefore is required at the micro-level on information needs in rural areas…"[15]

Library without walls?

The concept of ‘the Library without walls’ is in vogue with technology allowing access to distant resources and services and so much of what formerly happened only within libraries being placed in the hands of members to access and place holds, for instance, from their own homes and workplaces.

As something of a counter to this the concept of ‘library as place’ has been reassessed: - place to which people come for stimulation and refreshment of intellect and spirit; a place at which things happen, a place which is a springboard to community engagement and advancement. There is more than enough on this issue for the substance of several papers.

All I would say here is that it is not a matter of ‘either / or’ but of ‘both /and’. The traditional concept of library as place is not contrary to the concept of library without walls. Places can be physical and virtual. The best of libraries have for many decades provided outreach beyond their walls for several services.

What is key is that in the RCRC concept, place is important as everywhere else within the community.

Social and economic capital

RCRCs focus on developing the social and economic capital of a community. It is a key role, as I mentioned earlier, even though that concept was not defined as such at the time that the RCRC concept was developed.

A strong sense of community has traditionally been quite marked in rural and semi-rural areas in New Zealand. Through the 1980s and 1990s some small towns took a hammering in this regard – something I will refer to again later.

Churches, shops, post offices, hotels, and the like often fostered social networks. But with the general decline of at least the mainstream churches, as part of the increasing secularisation of New Zealand, added to the extensive closing of post offices and courthouses, and the trend for people to travel greater distances to buy their food at supermarkets rather than local stores, a vacuum opened up which provided further opportunities for rural community resources centres and libraries to fill.

A recent document Mission Shaped and Rural: Growing Churches in the Countryside has this to add about English rural life but it is also relevant to New Zealand:

“In addition, the population shift from urban to rural has contributed to social fragmentation and this is set to continue. Some incomers arrive with unrealistic expectations – of peace and quiet or a slower pace of life. In their own desire to retreat from industrialization, they do not always recognize that in the countryside they are living in a working environment under threat.

Stories abound of urban incomers who object to the smells and noises of the farm and rural business. To those who have lived in the countryside longer, it can feel than an invasion of articulate powerful people with fantasies about the countryside is misinforming policies from politicians and planners.

Another point of tension is that people have sometimes arrived in the countryside with an imagined view of the rural ideal and expect locals to conform to it – attempts to ‘create community’ by newcomers may not go down too well with those whose understanding of ‘community’ is rather different.”16]

We see recently in Karitane, on the East Coast of Otago, homes being sold by long-term residents to newcomers from Dunedin City and Central Otago wanting weekend and holiday homes. In time, of course, some of these newcomers may end up occupying these houses on a permanent basis as I did in the neighbouring village of Waikouaiti after 13 years of owning my weekender there.

The value of a culture of celebration fostering a sense of place and contributing to social capital is recognised in A Manual for Small Town Renewal, an excellent Australian publication which very helpfully sets out comprehensively how to create a more positive future for communities.[17] Libraries can have a key role in providing a venue for, inspiration of, and practical assistance towards celebratory events in our communities.

The Power of the Public Library

Serendipitously, as I was just setting down the possible headings for this paper, a hiking/biking buddy of mine loaned me his copy of Neville Peat’s Detours: A Journey Through Small-Town New Zealand.[18] Peat undertook this significant ride in the early 1980s when the whole country, and the countryside particularly, was extraordinarily challenged by lean economic times and major changes of government policy.

He decided to cycle on his 10 speed bike from North Cape to Stewart Island deliberately taking the by-ways rather than the highways. He planned his route to take in small town New Zealand talking with locals about how they were managing to cope.

When Peat wrote of cycling through the Wairarapa he mentions a character called Danna Glendining , a campaigner for the rights of rural communities. Peat said that her life ”was full of newsletters, phone calls and committees.”[19] (Not unlike a certain librarian of my acquaintance.)

Danna Glendining started an organisation mostly known by its acronym (TREC) – Towards Rural Equality of Citizenship. He noted that it didn’t have a committee or constitution but was a veritable powerhouse running under her own steam.

“It’s a journey” [she said] “a movement towards improved social services for rural areas, better health services, secure schooling, more sensitive district planning, that sort of thing. Anyone who does anything to bring equality for rural citizens a little closer is part of the journey.”[20]

When asked how it worked she replied.

“Well, we exchange information and I act as a kind of broker – you know, respond to requests for information and send out newsletters. Last week I had an enquiry from Gisborne about how to set up a work co-operative for unemployed women. And some people up Whangarei wanted to know how to improve their school bus service. Really, it’s a matter of knowing how the “system” works and how to use it. It’s a squeaky wheel that gets the oil, and unless rural people make the squeaks, the oil will go to other wheels."[21]

It was clear to me that Danna was performing some of the key functions of an RCRC and we all know those dynamic librarians today whose daily efforts contribute to their communities being that much richer in all sorts of ways.

When Neville Peat reached Collingwood we see more evidence of the dynamic library…

“To round off my visit I booked in for dinner at the Lighthouse Guest House at the top end of Collingwood’s short main street. It was formerly the police station. The old lock-up was a museum now. Another part of the museum occupied the old bank building. The bank used the library once a week. [Now there’s a thought.] The library… [and] Collingwood had evolved in weird and wonderful ways.” [22]

It was interesting to reflect, as I read this, that what seemed weird and wonderful to Peat in the early 1980s seems commonplace and ordinary now as public and commercial buildings have been re-adapted for other uses, not only in small towns but in cities as well.

Another worthwhile connection which public libraries can make, is with their local Citizens’ Advice Bureau. I was unsuccessful in getting Dunedin’s Emergency and Citizens’ Advice Service (as it was known then) into the new Dunedin Public Library building in the early 1980s but some other libraries have done this to enhance the undoubted synergies which exist between the two services.

My last quotation from Detours concerns Peat’s visit to Tapawera, a forestry village, an hour’s drive to Nelson city. He writes of the residents who had:

“…persuaded the Forest Service not to demolish an old house but allow its use as a community centre. Now the house was a venue for charity fund-raising ventures, beer and curry evenings, seminars, and a library.”[23]

Just like the best of public libraries and community centres, I contentedly thought.

Conclusions

Stephney Ferguson, a former President of COMLA, former Jamaica National Librarian, and also sometime University Librarian at the University of West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica made the following observation:

“Librarians from the developing countries seem to be primarily interested in rural library services and those from the developed world show a leaning towards community resource centres. I would like to suggest that there need not be such a division but rather a coalescence and that librarians should attempt to re-evaluate their approach to rural librarianship with a view to developing what I like to call “appropriate librarianship” for rural communities. …

[we need to] show creativity and initiative in spearheading new types of services which are likely to be more relevant to the communities we are trying to serve."24]

It is obvious to me that we need to work low to the ground, tap into all the community networks there are, listen before we speak, plan and develop.

As librarians we need to:

• meaningfully engage with the community and its representatives;
• be alert to signs and portents which signal changes to community needs and wants;
• be alert to our communities’ desire to hold back on some things, or to take them over thus creating opportunities for our libraries/RCRCs to get on with new things.

This does not mean that libraries cannot be proactive. They should always be proactive, but they will test new notions with the community before they implement them. And library management systems will be flexible enough to allow individual units working with different communities to be light on their feet and develop individual programmes and services, as I am pleased to say happens within the Dunedin Public Libraries system.

Annex One

Social Capital

Social capital has been interpreted differently at different times. Probably the most useful definition which links both ‘social’ and ‘capital’ has appeared in Building Social Capital![25] ­papers presented at seminars held by the Institute of Policy Studies at VUW, and edited by David Robinson.

David Robinson, in his Introduction to that volume states:

“Social capital is a fluid concept that cannot be solidified and isolated in one activity…

“Social capital resides in relationships …

“Social capital refers to the collection of resources that an individual or a group has access to through their membership of an ongoing network of mutual acquaintance. Features of this social structure, such as relationships, norms and social trust, help develop co-ordination and co-operation for common benefit.”[26]

Within the term social capital, the word ‘social’ brings together two interconnected meanings. In the first, ‘social’ refers to association; that the capital belongs to a collective, a group based on culture, locality, interest, ethnicity, religion, or some other factor. The capital is owned by the community; it is ‘shared’ and does not belong to individuals. …

“Use of the term ‘capital’ indicates that social capital is not something that is produced and consumed without trace; it is not just a transitory process. Social capital is capital in that it can be built up over time and can be drawn upon in the future. There must be some meaningful accumulated stocks of social capital resources in a community or system to justify the use of the word ‘capital’. Social capital is considered to be capital because it:

• has accumulated;
• can be drawn upon; and
• has stocks or a portfolio of assets.”[27]

---

[1] Giggey, Shirley. Rural Community Resource Centres: A Guide for Developing Countries. London, Macmillan, 1998. p. vi – vii.

[2] Bergdahl, Birgitta. IFLA’sProgramme Advancement of Librarianship in the Third World: A Proposal for the Future. Stockholm, Swedish Library Association, 1990. 41 p.

[3] ibid. p. viii

[4] ibid. p. viii

[5] Giggey, Shirley, The Concept of Rural Community Resource Centres in Developing Countries [in] Rural Libraries and Community Resource Centres: Proceedings of the COMLA Workshop on Rural Libraries and Community Resource Centres, Sydney, Australia, 5 – 7 September 1988 and the COMLA Workshop on Libraries in Rural Areas and Small Island Communities, Valletta, Malta, 4 – 6 April 1990. Edited by Roy Sanders and James Henri. Wagga Wagga, International Association of Rural and Isolated Libraries (IARIL) for the Commonwealth Library Association (COMLA) 1990. p. 25

[6] ibid. p. 25

[7]Putman, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2000.

[8] Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Social capital.

[9] ibid.

[10] Giggey, Shirley. Rural Community Resource Centres: A Guide for Developing Countries. London, Macmillan, 1998. p. 4

[11] ibid. p. 7

[12] Bannister, Marion. Rural Libraries and Regionalisation: Issues and Practicalities. Countries [in] Rural Libraries and Community Resource Centres: Proceedings of the COMLA Workshop on Rural Libraries and Community Resource Centres, Sydney, Australia, 5 – 7 September 1988 and the COMLA Workshop on Libraries in Rural Areas and Small Island Communities, Valletta, Malta, 4 – 6 April 1990. Edited by Roy Sanders and James Henri. Wagga Wagga, International Association of Rural and Isolated Libraries (IARIL) for the Commonwealth Library Association (COMLA) 1990. p. 32

[13] Giggey, Shirley, The Concept of Rural Community Resource Centres in Developing Countries [in] Rural Libraries and Community Resource Centres: Proceedings of the COMLA Workshop on Rural Libraries and Community Resource Centres, Sydney, Australia, 5 – 7 September 1988 and the COMLA Workshop on Libraries in Rural Areas and Small Island Communities, Valletta, Malta, 4 – 6 April 1990. Edited by Roy Sanders and James Henri. Wagga Wagga, International Association of Rural and Isolated Libraries (IARIL) for the Commonwealth Library Association (COMLA) 1990. p. 25

[14] Frater, Janice, School/Community Libraries in New Zealand. [in] COMLA Newsletter, no. 75, March 1992 p. 7.

[15] Rosenberg, Diana. Rural Libraries and Community Resources Centres: Proceedings of the COMLA Workshops,Australia 1988, Malta 1990 a review [in] COMLA Newsletter, no. 75, September 1991. p. 40

[16] Gaze, Sally. Mission Shaped and Rural: Growing Churches in the Countryside. London, Church House Publishing, 2006. p. 22

[17] A Manual for Small Town Renewal. Vol 2. Change the Future of Your Community. [by] Peter Kenyon and Alan Black, etc. Kingston ACT, Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, 2001. p. 8

[18]Peat, Neville. Detours: A Journey Through Small-Town New Zealand. Christchurch, Whitcoulls, 1982. 250 p.

[19] ibid. p. 146

[20] ibid. p. 146

[21] ibid. p. 147

[22] ibid. p. 160

[23] ibid. p. 172

[24] Ferguson, Stephney, Appropriate Librarianship for Rural Communities [in] Rural Libraries and Community Resource Centres: Proceedings of the COMLA Workshop on Rural Libraries and Community Resource Centres, Sydney, Australia, 5 – 7 September 1988 and the COMLA Workshop on Libraries in Rural Areas and Small Island Communities, Valletta, Malta, 4 – 6 April 1990. Edited by Roy Sanders and James Henri. Wagga Wagga, International Association of Rural and Isolated Libraries (IARIL) for the Commonwealth Library Association (COMLA) 1990. pp. 90 - 93

[25] Building Social Capital: papers presented at seminars held by the Institute of Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, October and November 2000. Edited by David Robinson. Wellington, Institute of Policy Studies, 2002. 85 pp.

[26] ibid. p. 3

[27] ibid. p. 6