Dialogue: A swimming pool or a library? It's no contest

By GORDON McLAUCHLAN

When people who are reasonably well-educated readers hear of a city councillor choosing to promote the construction of swimming pools over the development of a well-stocked community library, the temptation is towards outrage - a response that may be just as mindless as its provocation. And often the defence of the institutions of the arts is pompous and smug.

Manukau City councillor Alan Johnson, in opposing a library, expressed a quandary we've all been in at some time in recent years, bedazzled as we are by the pace of change in the so-called Information Age.

He was reported as saying that the growth of technology meant the council should take time to consider what form libraries would take in future before rushing into building a new facility. Many of us have wanted to defer decisions on technology because the electronic tool we need may so soon be surpassed by its technological offspring. The arrival of obsolescence, contrived by the computer industry, can be measured in months now rather than years.

But then we realise that not making any decision is even sillier because waiting means we never participate. To say simply that a major library facility is too hard because one can't foresee the technological future is to deprive Manukau of one of the basic institutions any decent community should possess.

I have no doubt at all that something similar to the contemporary book will be around when Mr Johnson's grandchildren are adults but quite what form it will take is moot. It could well be a book-sized machine that can be plugged into a data source of stories and download from it. Hopefully, its pages will turn at the press of a button. Whatever, stories will never die and they will be contained in a book of some sort.

I suspect, though, that Mr Johnson's concern was mainly an excuse to enable him to plump for his preference - indoor swimming pools rather than a central library. I'll bet he sees libraries as repositories of artefacts for an elite. And he may be right - if those who love stories and are eager to improve their lives through their minds can be categorised as an elite.

But I wonder if he has examined this question of who actually uses libraries, or is he working from assumptions? Has he examined the question of who uses swimming pools, or is he guessing there, too? Has he thought through the long-term enjoyment and community value to be gained from one facility compared with the other?

I would have much more respect for Mr Johnson if he gave an indication that he really wanted to know about the shape of the library of the future. The idea - which lifts its head above parochialism - that the Manukau satellite libraries should be attached to the Auckland City Library is certainly worth a hard look. But I'm sure the investigation of that will be deferred, too, while the swimming pools are dug.

Manukau City should change what it sees as a difficulty imposed by technology into an advantage. With expert help, it should be able to have the most modern library in the country. It may not need to be a huge building, and could perhaps plug itself into an Auckland regional system and provide special electronic facilities for the benefit of its readers and scholars.

Such an investigation would require imagination and, while it's under way, Mr Johnson should perhaps examine social changes and find them less bemusing than the technological ones. For example, 10 years ago it was easy to argue the community value of sport. That is much more difficult today.

Years ago, I promised myself I would one day be in a good seat to watch the Olympic Games track and field finals. Now that the games are drug-sodden and scandal-ridden and run by a former colleague of the Spanish dictator, General Franco, I wouldn't cross the Tasman to watch if given a ticket.

Cricket is riddled with cheats and almost no sport is free from scandal or its participants from gross, capricious and often violent behaviour. As well, some of them will have to live with the consequences of injury for the rest of their lives.

It's hard now to argue the social value of sport and, at a practical level, proportionately few people will achieve the sort of excellence in sport that leads to riches and fame, compared with how many people, given access to a library or other cultural facilities, will live economically useful and personally fruitful lives.