Investigation into library managers' policies and attitudes to charging for public library services

Abstract

The Local Government Amendment Act No.3 1996 requires local authorities to raise a proportion of their annual revenue for services from external funding, based on the ratio of a service's classification as public or private good. Public libraries, as one local authority service, are subject to this requirement. Prior to this legislation, some public libraries had no user charges in place, but today all public libraries in New Zealand have charges of some sort. This research study looks at what concepts guide policies on user charges within public libraries. In general, within the New Zealand library profession there has been strong opposition towards user charges. Another aim of this research was to gauge whether this attitude still prevailed and how policymakers balanced the requirement to raise external funding with other considerations. Representatives from four libraries in the greater Auckland region were interviewed about their policies on user charges. Findings showed that the concept of core services was applied more often that of public and private good. Another significant concept was the value added service, which the libraries were beginning to adopt and promote. Managers viewed this type of charge more positively than those were there was no element of choice. Information technology played an increasingly significant role, with the Internet now seen as a core service.