‘Deforestation’ makes way for users of virtual (and actual) resources

GISBORNE is anticipating a “wall of wood” as the region’s forests are felled, but it’s not the deforestation of pine that staff at the HB Williams Memorial Library have been working on.
Instead, they have thinned their shelves to the tune of thousands of books in readiness for their annual sale, whereby members of the public can buy quality books for (almost) a handful of sawdust.
That is going to make it the library’s biggest book sale yet so district library manager Pene Walsh is expecting even more punters than the 2000-odd that turned up last year. “More people than ever are using the library — about 5000 people a week, a 30 percent increase in the past three years — so we’ve simply had to selectively log to ensure sustainability and make space for people in the library to do their own thing.”
Books were still important, she added. In fact, more than ever were being issued to library customers.
“But many reference materials have been replaced with on-line resources and people are using the library in different ways,” she said. “It is important for people of all ages to be able to meet and hang-out at the library, so we wanted to clear some of the dead wood to make room for common spaces.”
Also helping to make room in the space-strapped library will be the introduction of e-books, which will happen once a few technical details have been finalised.
But contain yourselves book lovers . . . the library won’t actually be loaning out e-readers: “We can’t afford to do that and, in any case, we don’t want to endorse any particular reader”. However, those with their own readers will be able to loan electronic books via the Northern Virtual E-Library consortium, of which the Gisborne library is a member.
In any case, it’s not all about putting material on-line. Walsh says that thinning out the physical collection — especially in the subject areas of cooking, home and gardening — will make room for more actual, rather than virtual, books.
“The revival of things like craft, vegetable growing and cooking is of great interest to people in Gisborne so we really need new stock to freshen up the collections.” ■ The 2011 Deforestation Book Sale will be on at Book’s Cove — at the HB Williams Memorial Library’s Peel Street entrance — tomorrow (9.30am-4.30pm) and Saturday (9.30am-12.30pm).