6 Jun 2012

Bougainville library gets help from Wellington counterpart

8:17 am on 6 June 2012

A new library being built in the autonomous Papua New Guinea province of Bougainville is set to benefit from expert help from New Zealand's Victoria University Library.

The campaign to build the libarary is led by author Lloyd Jones, whose book, 'Mr Pip' is set in Bougainville in 1991, during the decade-long civil war.

Mr Jones says the library building itself is expected to be completed towards the end of the year and they're lucky to have Victoria University Library on board to mentor the Bougainville library staff and provide them with expertise.

"Victoria university has been really helpful, aiding us with developing a collections and management policy, this policy will guide the operation of the library. There are a whole lot of disciplines around operating a library, clearly. Before the books actually leave New Zealand and go to Bougainville, they're going to catalogue them."

Lloyd Jones says the local librarians will then be trained, and outreach programmes will need to be undertaken so locals can learn to interact with and use the library.