Library decision doesn't inspire confidence

The decision to construct a regional library in Gosford is typical of the 20th-century thinking of the Council which hasn't yet come to grips with new technologies and with changing patronage patterns.

The way in which library services will be used in the future will be best served by a network of linked satellite libraries (already partly in place and easily adapted and expanded), with close access to local communities, particularly to schoolchildren and the aged.

This might be supplemented by a small central archive and reference/research unit that could be accommodated almost anywhere - perhaps on or adjacent to the Ourimbah campus or even associated with the university library.

What is not needed is another monumental structure in a location far from the bulk of the Central Coast population, and the sorry story of the library project that has been bounced around from location to location like a jumping jack, apparently without much basic thinking about reader requirements, doesn't inspire much confidence in either the old elected council or the Administrator who has succeeded it.

Email, 9 Mar 2017

Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy