6.1 List of service access points
6.2 Digital library
6.3 Central City library
6.4 Community libraries
Libraries are the memory of humankind, irreplaceable repositories of documents of human thought and action.
[New York Public Library website] xv
ACL/TPK is a memory bank, its heritage collections of national and international significance ranking with those of the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington and the Hocken Library in Dunedin. Like the New York Public Library, the ACL/TPK collections and services are freely available to the citizens of the city, rather than restricted to members of university or research institutions.
ACL/TPK comprises simultaneously a network of community libraries, a set of scholarly research, back catalogue and heritage collections, and a growing digital library. Its intellectual and cultural range is both global and local, with a particular spotlight on Auckland. That combination lends to ACL/TPK an extraordinary richness.
6.1 List of service access points
Digital Library
www.aucklandcitylibraries.com
Central City Library
- Including lifestyle and recreational collections, research and heritage collections.
- LOGIS (Local Government Information Service).
Community libraries
- Avondale Community Library
- Blockhouse Bay Community Library
- Epsom Community Library
- Glen Innes Community Library
- Grey Lynn Community Library
- Leys Institute Community Library
- Mt Albert Community Library
- Mt Roskill Community Library
- Mt Wellington Community Library
- Onehunga Community Library
- Otahuhu Community Library
- Parnell Community Library
- Pt Chevalier Community Library
- Remuera Community Library
- St Heliers Community Library
- Waiheke Community Library
- Mobile Library
- Great Barrier Island Community Collection
In addition to these customer access points, Auckland City has research collections held at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland Zoo, and other Council departments. These are primarily for the use of Council staff in carrying out their functions. The E.H. McCormack Research Library at the art gallery is open to the public on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and its collections are listed on the library catalogue.
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6.2 Digital Library
The concept of a digital (or virtual) library is a relatively new one within the realms of public libraries and more especially within the New Zealand library community. The digital library provides a dynamic environment for meeting customer needs. It is transforming ACL/TPK business to meet customers’ changing lifestyles and demand for ubiquitous access to information and knowledge 24 x 7.
A digital library offering is seen as being more that just an interface into ACL/TPK, its physical libraries and its catalogue. The offer provides an expanded range of customer choice and self-service options for existing and new customers, whether at home, work, school, or within the library itself. The digital library also provides access to a wide range of electronic resources, of both local and international content.
The digital library is a key priority in the implementation of the Ki Mua service delivery model (knowledge channel) and the roles of the Information Gateway and Learning Centre, as well as in the implementation of the Customer Access Strategy. The digital library’s capacity to facilitate access to knowledge and government information and to promote life long learning as well as new forms of recreational activities will have a profound impact on ACL’s customers. ACL will develop a digital environment using an information, communication and technology (ITC) architecture to provide digital content and personalized remote services.
The ACL/TPK website,
www.aucklandcitylibraries.com was launched in 1999. In 2003 the look, feel and nature of the existing offer was reviewed to more accurately reflect the library as a whole and to offer a better level of service to the ACL/TPK customer. The new website, using the new organisation branding and reflecting the four Ki Mua roles, (most importantly the Information Gateway and the Leaning Centre roles) was launched in November 2003. Customer access to both external subscription databases and ACL/TPK internally created local databases is now through the Digital Library.
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6.3 Central City library
The Central City Library supports all four of the Ki Mua roles, but the depth of its heritage and research collections gives it a very strong focus on the Information Gateway.
The Central City Library also has a Community Anchor role for Auckland central city residents and workers.
The Central City Library also has a regional role because it is the only public library within the Auckland region to have an in-depth heritage collection of national and international significance. Other collections of regional significance within the Central City Library are the serials, newspapers, sheet music, children’s literature research, standards, manuals, directories and international documents collections.
Because of the depth of the Central City Library’s collections the Central City Library also attracts users from further afield.
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6.4 Community libraries
The strongest focus of the community libraries’ collections is on the Ki Mua roles Book Library and Community Anchor, with a particular emphasis on popular recreational lending material, both fiction and non-fiction, for adults, children, and teens. Popular magazines are also well supported.
Community libraries fill these roles:
- Providers of high demand popular material, in a variety of formats, with cultural balance appropriate to the catchment.
- Pre-schoolers road to learning with a family focus, including provision of non-book formats which stimulate learning and cognitive development, and a cultural balance appropriate to the catchment
- Collectors and providers of local and council information and local history
- Information navigators for all ages, supported by well-developed basic reference collections and access skill programmes
- Supporters of school age children, through tightly focused reference and non-fiction collections in both print and electronic format
- Points of access for the physically disabled, literacy learners and those with English as a second language
- The gateways to the Central City Library, the Digital Library and other library and information sources facilitated by technology and networking
The community libraries vary in size of catchment, collection and building, and in communities served. They have been grouped for administrative purposes into 3 bands, based on catchment, size of collection and performance. The core collections based on band allocation are also supplemented by niche/specialist roles that will determine additional depth to the collection.
Banding will be used to:
- Determine the performance measures at each site, including number of items set as a per capita target at each site
- Determine budget allocation at each site for core collections
- Offer a flexible approach to the community library model, ie. if the demographics of a catchment area move, the banding model will assist with appropriate allocation of the collection.
- Determine the guidelines for balance of collections and percentage allocation of collection categories at each site.
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