Newsletter March 2008

Welcome

Work is progressing well on developing the Draft Libraries 2025 Facilities Plan for adoption by Council later this month.

Since the last newsletter in December, the Working Party – an independent group of key community and industry representatives’ set-up to work in partnership with Council staff and elected members to develop the Draft Plan – has presented its broad conceptual thinking to a joint Community Board seminar. Held in January, this seminar was well received by those attending, who commended the work done to date by the Working Party and Libraries staff.

This was followed by an elected member seminar late last month at which broad issues and options were represented for feedback. This was invaluable in seeking elected member feedback to help inform the recommendations in the Draft Plan.

Both seminars followed a pre-consultation phase, designed to ensure the needs of the wider community formed the nucleus around which the Plan was developed. The Working Party’s primary functions have been to identify priority areas for enhancing community access, developing a hierarchy of library facilities and identifying future opportunities which will form their recommendations to Council.

The Draft Libraries 2025 Facilities Plan will provide a city-wide framework to guide the future development of our libraries network to better meet Christchurch’s changing geographic and demographic needs.

Christchurch City has a proud history of investing in libraries; the city having a network of 19 facilities which provide a customer-driven, value-for-money and technologically advanced service for residents and ratepayers.

The Draft Plan will look to grow the existing network by tailoring any future development, network configuration or extension of services to better meet community needs, address population and area growth and create focal points for community learning and leisure activities.

Through this Plan, Council will be recognising the importance of libraries in providing social hubs in the community and the need to ensure future development reflects the cultural diversity of the community and the advances in digital information and communication technology.

The Draft Plan will be presented to Council on 27 March for adoption and released for wide public comment in mid to late April. A comprehensive community engagement plan is being developed to ensure all sectors of the community get the opportunity to provide feedback on the Draft Plan. Any projects recommended in the final Plan, to be completed by June/July, will be considered as part of the 2009 Long Term Council Community Plan process.

Regards

Carolyn Robertson
Christchurch City Libraries Manager