A celebration on Friday marked the Arrowtown Library’s 40th anniversary, however library services in the township commenced 116 years earlier.
According to the Lake Wakatip Mail, the Arrowtown Public Library opened in the Library Hall — site of the current Athenaeum Hall — in May 1868.
The founder and secretary was Alex Innis, who was later mayor.
What was then known as the Athenaeum Library and Reading Room specialised in newspapers sent over from the ‘home’ countries — in 1883, membership/subscription was 10 shillings a year.
However the facility was burnt down in 1928 and the new Athenaeum Hall, erected four years later, didn’t have room for a library.
About 1936, a private library was housed along a wall of Ernie Thomson’s barber’s shop. Then from about 1939 the then borough council stored books for borrowing, however it used to only open on Fridays.
A library committee was set up in 1976, and chairperson/librarian Joy Soper was instrumental in pushing for a permanent library. Its last temporary home, from 1979, was in a room in the Athenaeum Hall.
That library services continued to exist was down to a lot of volunteers.
The design for the permanent library was handled by Queenstown architect Michael Wyatt — reflecting the pre-1900 era of other Buckingham St buildings — and Arrowtown builder George Page constructed it for $110,000.
It was financed from the estate of Doris Payne, a lottery board grant and a council loan.
In May 1984, in anticipation of the new library, active membership was 1184, up from 190 in 1977 (it’s now 1775, with 36,849 items a year being checked out).
On July 21, 1984, the library was opened by Internal Affairs Minister Allan Highet in his last official engagement as an MP.
