11 November 2015

Rotorua Library visitors come online and through the doors

Rotorua may have missed out on royal visits by the Dukes and Duchesses of Cambridge and Cornwall in recent times, but it hasn’t always been the case, an item on Rotorua District Library’s popular blog page reveals.

Library - HeroIn fact Prince Charles has been here twice before and his mother the Queen four times although the last significant visit by her was exactly 20 years ago this month.

Library director Jane Gilbert said blogs were just one of many methods her team at the library now use to cater for users’ passion for information, such as the number of royal visits to Rotorua.

Online tools like Facebook, Pinterest and the library’s Kete page, which has 125 registered members, are all part of how modern-day libraries operate.

The library blog celebrated its first birthday last week with a presentation by Ani Sharland and Alison Leigh (attached) who research for and administer the blog. While the royal visit blog attracted some traffic, the most successful blog since its launch was a book review on the Enderby Settlement: Auckland Islands published in January this year.

In second place was a piece written by librarian Sandra Quinn on Moncur Drive while third was another book review, this time on a tribute to Godfrey Bowen, co-founder of the Agrodome, called The Ringers Stand.

“What I am pleased to see though is that our numbers through the library doors continue to trend upwards with an increase of nearly 15 per cent on the same period last year.

“Our mobile library is also showing a significant increase – up 26 per cent in users, a direct result of the library’s plan to include more school visits and engage students and teachers,” said Mrs Gilbert.

Rotorua Lakes Council’s 2014/15 annual report, now published in an e-book format on the council’s website, reports on the library’s contribution to the Rotorua 2030 vision.

It contributed to a resilient community, vibrant city heart and employment choices.

“We are particularly proud of our vibrant city heart work. We provided a sustained variety of programmes such as Discover your Library, Tech Tuesdays and Reading Round for all ages and interests.”

Its partnership with events like Tulip Fest and Matariki can account for the increased numbers through the doors, she said.

Library - secondaryThe introduction of Aotearoa People’s Network Kaharoa, a Department of Internal Affairs subsidised programme providing free internet and wifi for library customers is another reason.

“We’ve worked hard on our performance measures and were tantalisingly close on two of the three.”

The library has 59 per cent of the Rotorua community as members and 84 per cent of residents are “very/fairly” satisfied with the level of service at the library, both only one per cent short of the measure.

Not so good was the measure about usage in the last 12 months – 68 per cent said they had used it but the measure is for 75 per cent.

“I’m confident with the work we’re doing through our online platforms and in the library itself, that we can nail that measure soon,” she said.

Key library highlights:

BOOKS ISSUED
Library: 563,299
Mobile Library: 27,999
TOTAL ISSUES: 591,298
DOOR COUNT
Library: 316,013
Mobile Library: 17,088
Virtual Visits (website & social media) 107, 938
PINTEREST: 98 people follow our awesome stuff. The most popular topics are genealogy and famous local people and places (historical). More than 1000 people look at our stuff every month.

KETE: 9447 people viewed our material between February and October this year with 7734 people spending 2 ½ to 3 minutes on average looking at material. Over the past year we added 145 topics, 700 images and 200 documents to Kete.

BLOG: On May 4th we did our kind of shout out to ‘Rotorua’s Famous Sports People.’ We did a spotlight on the legendary Rotorua born and bred Buck Shelford.

We ran a spot the difference article where we posted an old map of Rotorua to see if people could recognise street names that have changed or completed disappeared over time.

They included:

Peneha street now part of Amohau street, Wairoa Rd now Te Ngae Rd extension, Railway Reserve now Rotorua Central Mall, Rotorua High School now Rotorua Boys High School, A&P ground now residential, Horohoro Rd now Springfield Rd.

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