The woman who read Auckland visits Papatoetoe

Regan Gentry's Learning Your Stripes mural outside of Papatoetoe War Memorial Library.

School holidays. Small people at Papatoetoe library create treasure mazes and frame them with sweet-treat paraphernalia: iceblock sticks and those environmental villains du jour, plastic drinking straws.

"I want a flash book," says a child, checking potential loans not for story vibe but for smooth spines and smudge-free corners. He'll find them too. The holiday sale - on now! - culls sticky and ripped tomes.

I pay off $23 in late fines; in return, the librarian refuses to take money for the withdrawn books I buy. For once, the sympathy is a little misplaced. For a professional library visitor like myself, late fines are an avoidable hazard thanks to online book renewal. But I can imagine busier, poorer and more distracted people getting caught out - the dollar-a-day rate means five adult books overdue by three days costs $15, just like that. And maybe the caught-out person wouldn't return to the library ever again and that is a disaster.

Still, it's great that kids' books don't attract overdue fines and the libraries collected $1.5 million in fines in the past 12 months, so it seems an important source of revenue. What's the right balance? Answers on the back of a bill envelope please.

Papatoetoe (aka "the land of the tall grass now usually spelled 'toitoi'") should not be confused with more southern Papakura ("red earth") or eastern Pakuranga ("battle of the sun's rays"). Papatoetoe is flat, with patches of civic prettifying. The library street sign sits in lovely poppies backed by glossy dark-green magnolias but points to a vast, ugly library carpark.

Then, between the library and the RSA is Regan Gentry's celebrated Learning Your Stripes mural. But I suspect hardly any library patrons see this primer of military service ribbons (disguised as a large lollipop-coloured barcode) because that ugly carpark is on the library's other side.

According to Bernard Gadd's well-written 1987 history of the suburb, the local Presbyterian church started Papatoetoe's first library 160 years ago (church members had a discount library subscription); by 1860 it had 120 books. A decade later, it was run by the fantastically-named Otahuhu Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association. (After the Waikato invasion, the association debated "Has the introduction of civilisation been as a rule advantageous to the aborigines of any community?", and the negative won.)

In 1945, a renovated army hut became Papatoetoe's first municipal library; 150 of its initial 500 books were lent out in its first week. Today, the library houses about 30,000 items (plus visitors can reserve items from other Auckland libraries).

Inside, Papatoetoe library is a long wholesome 1970s wholemeal bread rectangle - high wooden beams, brick walls and a brown carpet sporting accents of orange. The lucky teenagers get a mezzanine nook. Apart from three beautiful Gabrielle Belz murals, the decor is utilitarian, if comfy, rather like the suburb. One visitor in a high-vis vest studies a book about lucid dreaming. Each to their own escape from the maze.