The WEA Library car with Professor J. Shelley, G.T. Alley, G. Worthington, and Joan Osborne, Christchurch, March 1930. The Press, 24 March 1930.
Hocken Library
1930
Geoffrey Alley is appointed as WEA tutor-librarian to act under Shelley and drive a refurbished Ford delivery van with a hinged side that opened to reveal shelves of books. The 'box scheme' had given rise to the 'car scheme'. Materials such as gramophone records were borrowed from the box scheme, as were box scheme programmes for those groups which wished to have them in place of general courses in drama, music, literature, current affairs, and economic problems given by the tutor-librarian.
I had four young children so I said, ‘No, I can’t possibly start a group and read a book a month’. Dad wasn’t taking no for an answer though and ran an ad in a local newspaper that netted an instant result. I met some really interesting people out of that advertisement. Some of them were neighbours I didn’t know.
It’s sociable as well as intellectual…Some of the titles on the book list cover subjects many of us would never have dreamt of reading about. But so often people say, ‘I would never have chosen that book, but I got so much from it’...In talking about books you can get your opinion changed or see things differently.
Isobel Lawrence, Founder of CHCH 001 (Christchurch’s very first book group, which is still in operation today)