Bob Edlin: There has been lots of counting the costs of opening new library....

There has been lots of counting the costs of opening new library – but has anyone counted the books?

Wellington’s newly refurbished central library has cost heaps. As well as building costs (estimated at $217.6 million in an RNZ report last September), there have been Maori blessing costs, opening ceremony costs, and the costs of “a glitzy website”.

The website, The Post reports, cost nearly $600,000, pushing the costs associated with the library opening to more than $800,000.

The Post was told, in an official information response that the production cost for the dedicated Te Matapihi website was $13,961.

However, it has since been discovered the full cost of designing and building it (the end-to-end delivery) was actually $595,801.

The higher figure was provided in a separate, unpublished response to an official information request made by a member of the public, also released on Friday.

But ratepayers can rejoice that something cost them nothing.

The library was gifted a te reo Māori name, Te Matapihi ki te Ao ui, which means ‘a window to the wider world’ (although a different meaning is mentioned later in this article).

Moreover, The Post says Te Matapihi is not just a library, but “a multi-use hub that brought together a range of services and functions”.

Its report, quoting council spokesperson Richard MacLean, said the library had attracted 350,000 visits since its opening and was on track to reach 1.8 million, or 4900 people a day, in its first year.

There was no mention of the numbers of books on the shelves or borrowed.

But books were the focus of an article by Eva Churchman in Waikanae Watch.

The article was illustrated by these pictures…

Churchman wrote –

Yesterday, Geoffrey and I went to see this for the first time since reopening after having been closed since 19 March 2019 because the council was worried about earthquake risk. After 7 years it has been significantly altered inside from what it used to be, so much that you almost think you’re in a different building.

The first reaction we had was ‘where the Stuff are the books’? The Paraparaumu library has more than the Wellington central library now, as least from our tour of inspection.

It seems that old fashioned paper is out of favour; instead the Wellington city council crows about things like:

• Te Whaitua Mārū: A dedicated low-sensory space designed for neurodivergent visitors or anyone needing a quiet break.
• Nōku te Ao Capital E: A dedicated children’s play, learning, and discovery hub featuring a taniwha slide and permanent creative installations.
• Permanent Youth Space: A large, uninterrupted zone designed specifically for rangatahi (youth) to hang out and collaborate.
• Central Ground Café: A cashless, fully electric café on the ground floor [first photo above: we tried a capuccino, which was nice but $6 for a small cup]

As you would expect nowadays, displays of Wokeism are all over the place, starting with the name — it’s now officially known as Te Matapihi ki te Ao Nui which seems to mean ‘the window to the big cloud.’ The second photo shows a big room dedicated to leaves (native only of course) with an assembled folder called Rau = leaf, frond and whārangi = page, sheet, leaf (of a book).

Well, if that’s what appeals to the population, although we wonder how much people were asked. It’s a real shame, however, that old fashioned books have been relegated to secondary consideration.

Waikanae Watch long term readers will remember that in 2019 KCDC decided to cut Kapiti libraries’ book budget in half. In response Roger Childs together with the late Christopher Ruthe and the late Alan Tristram teamed up to form a pressure group called Restore our Book Budget or ROBB which succeeded in doing just that.

We hope the new Waikanae library will have lots of books!

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.