Chris Szekely: Library remodelling vital for the future

Opinion

The proposal to refurbish the National Library building and the Alexander Turnbull Library within it is rather more than a "good idea" as noted by Jim Traue, a former Turnbull chief librarian.

It is, in fact, essential to the library's core purpose as defined in current legislation. That purpose is "to enrich the cultural and economic life of New Zealand and its interchanges with other nations by collecting, preserving, and protecting documents, particularly those relating to New Zealand, and make them accessible for all the people of New Zealand, in a manner consistent with their status as documentary heritage and taonga".

The philosophies prevailing in years gone by resulted in a building and a service ethic that deliberately discouraged people from coming in the door, and are not appropriate in the current age, or in the foreseeable future.

New Zealanders have every right to be welcomed into their National Library, and the Turnbull Library is committed to exhibiting the collections in ways that are engaging and stimulate general interest. I sincerely hope more people will come and appreciate the wonders of the Turnbull's collections.

This in no way compromises our role as a research library. Indeed, research facilities will be considerably upgraded and expanded.

The Turnbull of the future will be one where researchers are still the primary focus, but where general visitors can see the extraordinary collection items, as they can in the British Library or the Library of Congress, neither of which are public libraries.

The digital age did not feature in the 1960s, when the National Library came into existence. In the current age, it does.

This is sensibly reflected in the most recent National Library Act of 2003 giving the National Library the mandate to collect and store electronic documents.

A digital future does not mean a library devoid of books. Rather it provides an opportunity to integrate the physical and digital and get the best of both worlds, enhancing access to, and understanding of, the collections.

The redevelopment will both accommodate the collections and their expected growth to at least 2026, and will include a cost-effective option to provide storage for a generation beyond that.

We are also faced with the reality that the current building will run out of space next year, and the conditions under which the collections are stored are substandard, having aged and degraded over the past 20 years. The redevelopment will see an upgrade of preservation environments to appropriate standards and guarantee the safety of the collections.

There will rightly be debate and discussion around a civic institution that holds responsibility for the largest documentary heritage collections in New Zealand. Equally, it is our responsibility to ensure New Zealanders are informed of the reasons for the redevelopment, and have some understanding of the role and relevance of their National Library in the 21st century.
* Chris Szekely is the chief librarian of the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington.