Rangiora’s Trevor Inch Memorial Library will celebrate its 30th anniversary in December.

An exhibition to celebrate the milestone will be held in the library’s Chamber Gallery from November 14 to November 26.

The library is named in memory of the late Trevor Milton Inch, the first elected Mayor of the Waimakariri District who died before the official opening of the library on December 21, 1996, but is remembered for his support of libraries as a place of life-long learning.

During the 30 years since the Rangiora facility opened, libraries have become a lot more community responsive and connected, Waimakariri District Libraries manager Luke Sole, who works at the Rangiora Library, says.

“Libraries are one of the few places where people are welcomed regardless of age or economic status," he says.’’

"Rather than shrinking, libraries have flourished and are busier than ever – both in attendance and lending.

Mr Sole says there is a real community around each of the district’s our libraries - Rangiora, Oxford and Kaiapoi. 

"Friendships are made here, and often it is the first place people go when they move to the area," he says.

“Social connection is so vital and reading for leisure is so important. Our libraries also contain our local stories and heritage. That is a real responsibility to safeguard and protect."

But although libraries now provide a special, welcoming place for communities to connect through thick and thin, Luke says growing up in Christchurch’s eastern suburb of Avondale he remembers the more punitive years of libraries when he was told off a few times for being too noisy or forgetting his card.

However, during those years back in the 1990s he also remembers the excitement he felt when the Christchurch City Library’s mobile book-service buses arrived in his neighbourhood.

“We had no idea where they came from, so it was like magic," he says.

Books and libraries have always been an important part of Luke’s life.

“My dad worked nightshift and would sometimes work overtime to make sure we had books in the house. Otherwise, we would have weekend trips to the library and come home with bags of books. Reading and talking about books were a big part of our family life."

However, it was the new New Brighton Library, which opened in 1999, that proved to be a real game changer for Luke.

“I was the first from my family to go to university, and I really believe it was partly due to having such a phenomenal resource available to me at such an important time of my life," he says.

"It was a formative space for me and still is such a vital asset to that community. We didn’t have the latest technology at home, so that was a place where I would go to browse the Internet or play a new video game that had just been released."

At the end of each visit Luke would bike home with a backpack filled with books to read.

Books by award-winning New Zealand writer and illustrator Gavin Bishop were favourites.

"They are dark, witty and have a great sense of the absurd," Luke says.

“It has been so nice reconnecting with them since becoming a parent. It is uncanny how the words and illustrations can take you right back to childhood."