Kiama councillors threw unanimous support behind a campaign launched by resident Machteld Hali, to prevent the loss of a valuable resource to the multicultural community.
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In light of the NSW State Library’s suspension of a foreign book service, all seven councillors voted to support Mrs Hali’s petition, pen a letter expressing disappointment in the State Library’s move, seek help from Kiama MP Gareth Ward.
Earlier, the State Library defended its decision to ditch the service, a service that Mrs Hali has sorely missed for a month.
Instead of dispatching multicultural books across the state, it plans to shift the onus onto local libraries, to acquire books, keep them stocked, and loan them out.
Mrs Hali condemned the move, launched a petition, and plans to head to the State Library and stage a protest.
“This model is completely unsatisfactory,” Mrs Hali said.
“They’re effectively dumping the service.
“Local libraries don’t have to shelf space, or the labour to administer the service.”
For the past decade, she has hired 30 Dutch books per month through the State Library.
“It’s been miraculous for me, I can open a book and be my old self again,” she said.
“When we migrated to Australia, we were expected to forswear our Dutch culture. This has been a wonderful way of regaining my identity.”
For 10 years, the books she borrowed were returned on time, but this month, the books are overdue.
“This is my protest, I’m keeping the books, and not returning them until the service is restored,” Mrs Hali said.
“The service is a symbol of a big thing, it’s saying, ‘we value our multicultural cohesion’.
“The State Library has taken a backward step.”
Mrs Hali is happy to contribute to freight costs as long as the service continues.
She appealed to Mr Ward, who promised to lobby state government colleagues on her behalf.
She will take to the street in Kiama, and leave a petition at the library on Railway Parade and at council chambers on Manning Street.
The State Library provided an explanation for the cut via email.
“The current service has been temporarily suspended while we work with libraries to transition to the new distributed mode,” NSW State Library said.
“Public libraries will shortly receive an Expression of Interest for them to request collections for their library.”