by Eva Churchman

Yesterday, Geoffrey and I went to see this for the first time since reopening after having been closed since 19 March 2019 because the council was worried about earthquake risk. After 7 years it has been significantly altered inside from what it used to be, so much that you almost think you’re in a different building.

The first reaction we had was ‘where the Stuff are the books’? The Paraparaumu library has more than the Wellington central library now, as least from our tour of inspection.

It seems that old fashioned paper is out of favour; instead the Wellington city council crows about things like:

  • Te Whaitua Mārū: A dedicated low-sensory space designed for neurodivergent visitors or anyone needing a quiet break.
  • Nōku te Ao Capital E: A dedicated children’s play, learning, and discovery hub featuring a taniwha slide and permanent creative installations.
  • Permanent Youth Space: A large, uninterrupted zone designed specifically for rangatahi (youth) to hang out and collaborate.
  • Central Ground Café: A cashless, fully electric café on the ground floor [first photo above: we tried a capuccino, which was nice but $6 for a small cup]

As you would expect nowadays, displays of Wokeism are all over the place, starting with the name — it’s now officially known as Te Matapihi ki te Ao Nui which seems to mean ‘the window to the big cloud.’ The second photo shows a big room dedicated to leaves (native only of course) with an assembled folder called Rau = leaf, frond and whārangi = page, sheet, leaf (of a book).

Well, if that’s what appeals to the population, although we wonder how much people were asked. It’s a real shame, however, that old fashioned books have been relegated to secondary consideration.

Waikanae Watch long term readers will remember that in 2019 KCDC decided to cut Kapiti libraries’ book budget in half. In response Roger Childs together with the late Christopher Ruthe and the late Alan Tristram teamed up to form a pressure group called Restore our Book Budget or ROBB which succeeded in doing just that.

We hope the new Waikanae library will have lots of books!