Fendalton Library & Service Centre
Te Kete Wānanga o Waimairi
Fendalton Library is one of the bigger and busier libraries in the Christchurch City Libraries network. There has been a public library in Fendalton since 1967 and prior to that the community was served by various lending libraries.
Early Libraries
The St Barnabas Sunday School Hall was a distinctive pink weatherboard building behind the original petrol service station on the corner of Clyde Road and Memorial Avenue. It had two main halls with lots of small rooms including a small lending library. The church sold the hall to the Waimairi County in the 1940s and it became the community centre. By the 1960s it had become very dilapidated and was demolished in 1964 to be replaced by the present BP Service Station.
In the 1930s a bookshop and small lending library operated in a block of shops on the opposite corner of Fendalton Road and Clyde Road. It was run by Miss Joan Phillips
"'who had suffered from polio as a child and walked painfully with two crutches'. She always parked her little Austin Seven car right on the corner near her shop. She is remembered perched on a high stool, 'smoking her way through business'"1
The first Fendalton Community Library
In 1967 the Waimairi County Council built a community hall, playcentre and library on Clyde Road next to Fendalton School. Some of the land came from Fendalton School which in return had use of the hall. The 12,000 square foot building, which cost $118,000, was officially opened by the Minister of Local government Mr Alan Seath on October 9, 1967. The hall had a seating for 480 and the playcentre could cater for up to 90 children.
Fendalton was the first library to be opened in the Waimairi County Libraries network (which eventually grew to include Redwood, Bishopdale and a mobile library). Mrs Thelma McArtney was the first librarian. In an interview on 11 October 1967, Mrs McArtney said: "this is the first time a county has established a library service"
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The library had a stock of 10,000 books, some of which had been borrowed from the Country Library Service. A children's library run by volunteers was upstairs on a mezzanine floor and had a stock of 2000 books. By the end of November 1967 Mrs McArtney was reporting that membership had passed the 2000 mark.
In 1970 the membership was close to 10,000 and drew customers from the rapidly growing suburban areas of Avonhead, Bishopdale, Harewood and also Riccarton as well as the Fendalton area. In 1970 Fendalton had a staff of seven. In 1971 she reported that 11,998 people borrowed books from Fendalton in July, compared with 10,139 in July the previous year. They included 5737 adults, 4553 children 1617 post-primary borrowers and 91 borrowers living outside the county.
Fendalton began a six month trial of Saturday opening from 9.30am to noon for six months starting on July 10, 1976 and was also now open from 10am to 8pm Monday to Friday.
Gradually the library staff grew and included more professional librarians. By 1976 the August school holiday programme arranged by children's librarian Anne-Marie Shaughnessy included a visit from Paddington Bear (the cast of the Canterbury Children's Theatre holiday production "A Bear Called Paddington"); How to grow plants and flowers, demonstrated by Mr Tony McCrae, several story times with Graeme Tetley and origami with Mr Bisman. Another programme in the May school holidays included story telling, folk-singing, origami and a visit from radio station 3ZB who brought along some of its equipment to show the children how it made broadcasts. There was also a bookmark competition.
The pressures of operating a library network from the Fendalton Library building continued to grow. County Librarian Dorothea Brown highlighted the problem of not enough staff causing backlogs in the processing of stock All stock movement and the administration of the library network was done in a 100 square metre room attached to the library.
Dorothea reported: "The walls are covered with shelves of books and piles of new and returned books form a potentially hazardous maze. Desk space is limited and most of the 30 part-time staff and administrators have to take turns at using the desks… in 1968 the workroom dealt with 2500 books, compared with 13,000 in the last financial year. The workload of Fendalton Library had also increased dramatically with 433,000 books issued last year compared with 175,000 in 1968"
. In May 1985 it was reported that the library would get a new central workroom to be built on to the back of a staff house in Jeffreys Road.
New developments
In 1989 Fendalton became part of the Canterbury Public Library network following local government amalgamation of Waimairi District and Christchurch City. In the next few years the library became increasingly busy and, situated next to Fendalton School, the large amount of traffic and limited parking for school and library customers caused ongoing concerns in the community. The old Waimairi District Council yard on Jeffreys Road had been transformed into a park (Waiwetu Park) next to the former county council building.
The decision was made to demolish the council building and design a combined library and council service centre on the site next to the park. The new building was designed by Ian Krause Architects and built by C Lund and Son Ltd. The old service centre was demolished at the end of June 1999 and the service centre moved into temporary accommodation on the edge of Waiwetu Park. Construction started in July. The old library closed on Saturday June 10, 2000 and for the next three weeks staff and contractors worked to move the book stock to the new building and set up the new library.
On 3 July 2000 the new library opened for business offering 987m2 of public space compared with the old building which had a total area of 658m2.
Opening day was described as a "tidal wave" with 5,434 issues, a further 1671 with the self checkout and 3064 items returned.
The local community continues to support the library with enthusiasm and the library hums along as one of the busiest in the whole library system.
Sources
- Looser, Frieda. Fendall's legacy: a history of Fendalton and north-west Christchurch Canterbury University Press, 2002.
Footnotes
