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SMAD. An Organ of Student Opinion. 1931. Volume 2. Number 3.

Letters to the Editor

page 10

Letters to the Editor

Dear Madam,—

A news item in our local daily contemporaries struck me as rather amusing. The item gave me the impression that our College Council was highly pleased with the improvements which have been effected to our Library. As a law student I wish emphatically to refute any suggestion that these improvements have benefited me in any way—on the contrary, those improvements have inconvenienced other users of the Library and me in the following manner; Formerly it was possible for law students to sit near the Law Reports and obtain the necessary volumes with a minimum of inconvenience to themselves and other users of the Library. Because the N.Z. Reports are in their present position near the door, students must go almost out of the Library every time they wish to refer to a volume of the Reports. Very frequently a single student finds it necessary to refer to more than one volume of the Reports within the space of a few minutes, and the constant peregrinations to and fro must result in a conscientious student's recording an astonishing total on his pedometer during the course of an evening. The hapless student may console himself with the thought that walking is good for the figure, but what if he suffer from fallen arches? And besides, no one is more uncomfortable than the unwilling disturber of students at work.

Again there seems no patent reason for locking the far door of the Library—even with the new bookcase in its present position the door will open easily either inwards or outwards. Yes, I stepped the distance out myself in the presence of amused and unbiased witnesses.

To sum up, I would pray that the Law Reports should be placed either in the Halsbury Bay or the N.Z. Reports should be interchanged with Reports used less frequently than the N.Z. ones; and would humbly implore that both doors be available to Library users as of yore—if only on grounds of public safety—or else some good cause shown why such prayer should not be granted.

There are some other defects in our Library to which attention will be drawn in a subsequent letter or letters.—Yours faithfully,

R. J. Larkin.

: : :

(To the Editor)

Dear Sir,—

I shall be very greatly obliged if you could give me a few facts as to how new books are purchased for the Library. One is generally able to find on the notice board outside the Library door a sheet of paper headed, "List of New Books Purchased During the Month of ............. Who is responsible for the purchasing I am not aware, but I am afraid that I am unable to commend it. Kindly consider the following instance:—

Before the holidays I wanted a good modern atlas showing railways and other means of transportation, together with mountain systems, etc. I inquired of the Assistant Librarian where the atlases were to be found, and I was told, under the stairs on the left hand side at the east end.

This is what I found:—
  • Stieler—Atlas of Modern Geography (published in 1912).
  • Labberton—An Historical Atlas (published in 1885).
  • Reclus—Atlas de la Plus Grande France (devoted entirely to France and the French).
  • Dr. Flange—Landwirpschaftlich Statistischer At las (German prewar publication).

Now, Mr. Editor, I ask you, how could I answer a question on present-day transport with the aid of these archives? The Treaty of Versailles was signed in July. 1919, and new atlases were published towards the end of that year. What was there to prevent one being purchased for the Victoria University College Library? On the assumption that there are six purchases made per annum, the person or persons responsible for the acquisition of books has or have had no less than 69 chances of buying a new atlas since March, 1920, and why he, she, or they has or have not done so, is quite beyond my comprehension.

I would be if I could be, Mr. Editor.

A Student Of Modern Economic Geography."

: : :

The above letters were submitted to the Librarian who replies as follows—
1.The N.Z. Law Reports are now in their right place, alphabetically, in the series to which they belong. As for inconvenience. I am afraid it is not sufficiently realised that there is probably no University Library in the world where undergraduates are so well served.
2.The stairs door is closed in order to keep better supervision. Last year 70 books were stolen from the Library, and it is believed that some of them vanished through that door.
3.Some of our atlases are certainly out of date. They are very expensive, and our funds are small. Stieler, for example, costs £5.
Your correspondent gives a list of our atlases, none of them post-war; yet if he had inquired or consulted the index he would have found:—
(1)Oxford Advanced Atlas, 1924.
(2)Bartholomew's and Lyde's Atlas of Modern Geography, 1925 and 1928.
(3)A large volume of maps in Eycyclopedia Britannica, 1929.

Librarian.

We believe that A.F.T.C., when asked recently what it was that appealed to him most in a certain debate, wittily replied, "Ladies and Gentlemen.'

The mismanagement of the recent Capping Ball forces us to the conclusion that the subject of "Balls and how to manage them," should be added immediately to the list of subjects taught at Victoria College.

Saturday? June 20th? Saturday.