Mayor Justin Lester has officially opened Arapaki Manners Library and Service Centre at a small ceremony, before the service opens its doors to the public for the first time at 9am.
“Manners Street is a great location for the first in our network of replacement library services for the CBD, and a welcoming new space for our service centre customers. At Arapaki, Wellingtonians can browse and borrow items, read papers and magazines and even pay their rates or register their dog all in one place,” Mayor Lester says.
Arapaki has roughly 7500 items on the shelves. These include a small children’s collection and a range of fiction, non-fiction and AV items. Library staff are available to answer questions, process library payments, register new customers, and provide support and advice on the wide range of online content available through the eLibrary. Free wi-fi, self-service computers and a Council payments desk are also available.
“I would like to thank Wellingtonians for their patience and support as we have worked to quickly set up Arapaki after the sudden loss of the Central Library. Arapaki may be perfectly formed, but it is small so we will be opening other CBD library pop-ups as soon as we can.
“Councillors will be considering advice on the options for the Central Library building in the coming months, so we haven’t made any decisions on its future yet. However, any one of the options on the table means it could be several years before we would have a Central Library again. So we are planning for Arapaki, and the other replacement services pop-up libraries, to be in use for the medium term.
“Arapaki is just the first of our CBD network to open. Our partnership space with the National Library will open in a few months, and I expect another pop-up location to be open by the end of the year. I will provide further details about that in the coming weeks,” Mayor Lester said.
Councillor Fleur Fitzsimons, who holds Wellington City Council’s community facilities portfolio, says Arapaki will be a busy site. “We have specifically selected a range of popular items and services for Arapaki. We’ll be keeping an eye on what’s popular and what’s not. Customer feedback will help us make sure we have what our readers want across our CBD network.”
Arapaki is also the new home to the Council’s service centre, replacing the former site on Wakefield Street. Members of the public are able to access the same services at Arapaki.
Arapaki Manners Library and Service Centre is open for Service Centre business Mon-Fri 8am-5pm with extended hours for the library which is open Mon-Fri 8am-7pm, Sat-Sun 9.30am-5pm.
To keep up to date with replacement library services, visit wcl.govt.nz and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.