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Kaipara District Council has unveiled a library strategy which proposes a larger Council-owned library in Mangawhai to replace the current library in Moir Street, run by volunteers.
Council is in the process of securing land for the library with funding set aside in the Long Term Plan.
However, it has also acknowledged that with escalating material costs, the budget will be insufficient.
The Kaipara library strategy has identified that the district’s population (25,200 in 2020) is projected to grow to 32,552 by 2051. By then the number of people over 65 will double. The major growth will be at Mangawhai and people moving out of Auckland will bring city expectations of what a library service can be.
There are currently five libraries in Kaipara – Dargaville Library, the only library service run by paid staff; and community libraries at Paparoa, Kaiwaka, Maungaturoto and Mangawhai, all run by volunteers.
As well as the new facilities in the two main centres, the adopted strategy also includes a new mobile library service to complement the physical libraries, an increased budget for library resources and additional staff, and installing publicly accessible internet and equipment for internet access across all the community libraries.
Council chief executive Louise Miller says what Council doesn’t want to do is build something that is answering issues of the past.
“We need to answer the current issues, but also be forward thinking in terms of how libraries can actually build communities and bring people together, which is really key with the environment we find ourselves in currently.”
Mayor Dr Jason Smith heralded the strategy, calling it “smart and clever” and “done the Kaipara way”.
“Kaipara people have needed this strategy for a very, very long time,” he said.
The library strategy was made possible with support from the New Zealand Library Partnership fund.
