Copeland Gordon: National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna MAtauranga o Aotearoa) Bill — In Committee 
Copeland Gordon: National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna MAtauranga o Aotearoa) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4947] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I reiterate United Future’s support for the bill but want briefly to address the words in the title “National Library”. When speaking in the second reading debate my colleague Bernie Ogilvy expressed the concern of our party that the National Library is becoming the “library of last resort”. When most people want to access a library they go to their local public library or to an institutional library to which they are affiliated. Thus most people’s physical perception of a library is grounded in their own local area. Moreover the total budgets and resources of these local libraries far outstrip those of the National Library and these libraries make their own decisions on how their funds should be used. Perhaps on both counts that is as it should be. It would be disastrous to maintain an oversized National Library in Wellington at the expense of those libraries in the rest of New Zealand and I could add also at the expense of the general taxpayer. However I think there has been a perception in the past that the National Library should fill a kind of “mother of all libraries” role. That ignores the reality of the electronic age because libraries across the country can access both national and international information at a keystroke. 
So how will the National Library remain a national library in that sense? One issue is covered in the bill whereby the requirement of “legal deposit” is extended to electronic documents. Although United Future has its doubts about the feasibility of that task we recognise that for those who live in the far-flung regions of this country beyond practical access to local libraries resources such as a national database of electronic and non-electronic documents accessible via the Internet have the potential to be incredibly valuable. Once again that database could be viewed as an information source of last resort but the right of access to a library for people in those circumstances should be equal to the right of any other citizen. To this extent it is still a national library. 
But to avoid being viewed as a default library the National Library of New Zealand also needs to reinvent itself. It is the only place where all New Zealand publications may be found—something that is endorsed in this bill. Yet we should not come to treat it as a place where treasures are contained but never see the light of day. The cornucopia could easily become a mausoleum. That was the tenor of some of the submissions regarding the clarification of the relationship between the Alexander Turnbull Library and the National Library and some submitters were concerned that access to rare and historical material would be restricted. The bill ensures that the holdings of the Alexander Turnbull Library are secure and able to be loaned—provisions that are welcomed. 
But the general issue remains. For it to be a true national library as the title of the bill affirms there needs to be a much greater effort to share the treasures inside with the rest of the country. That is the real challenge facing the National Library but perhaps it is one that goes beyond the relatively constrained parameters of this bill.