Narratives of public library roles and value: a critical discourse analysis of a public consultation on a new central library Open Access

Public consultation on issues or developments impacting communities is an accepted feature of local democracy (Morison, 2017). Local bodies regularly request public feedback on plans to develop or change the provision of services or facilities and there is a large body of research exploring methods used (Cho et al., 2021) and their outcomes (Jollymore et al., 2018). Local councils administer and fund public libraries in Aotearoa New Zealand (hereafter Aotearoa) with some oversight from the Department of Internal Affairs and the National Library. Local councils have ultimate responsibility for the operation and management of public libraries within their region. Initiatives canvassing the opinions of local people on current provisions as well as the future and development of public library services are common in Aotearoa and internationally (Lin and Boamah, 2019; Mushtaq and Arshad, 2022; Public Libraries Victoria, 2022) but public feedback on the future of the library service in the capital of Aotearoa, Wellington, became significant following the closure of the central library due to earthquake risk. The response to the consultation exercise provides an opportunity to explore public perceptions of public libraries more generally at a time of cutbacks to public libraries in some countries (Creamer, 2024) as well as an ongoing narrative questioning the value of libraries generally (Joffe, 2024), and in Aotearoa specifically (Radio New Zealand, 2023), in an age of disintermediation and e-resource availability (Dahlkild, 2011).

Te Matapihi ki te Ao Nui ^[1] (hereafter Te Matapihi), Wellington Central Library, closed suddenly in March 2019. This was a direct result of an engineering assessment that: “the building’s structure and in particular the floor system design presented a high level of potential failure in a significant earthquake” (Wellington City Council (WCC), 2020a, p. 7). The largest of the 12 libraries in the Wellington City Libraries network, Te Matapihi was open for more than 60 h per week and had around 3,000 visits per day, making it the “second most visited public facility” in Wellington (WCC, 2020a, p. 7). The council announced the closure on 19 March 2019, and the building closed to the public the same day. Closing buildings identified as an earthquake risk is a common, although much debated, occurrence in Wellington. The then Mayor of Wellington said, “We’re not legally obliged to close this building, we are morally obliged” (Desmarais and Chumko, March 2019). A robust debate followed about whether the library should be strengthened, or demolished and rebuilt entirely (Williams and Mitchell, 2020; Lock, 2020). Subsequently, Wellington City Council ran a public consultation exercise from July to September 2020 with options for the library’s future development including refurbishment or demolition and rebuilding, as well as open questions asking for submitters’ perspectives on the future of the library (WCC, 2020a). Interest in the consultation was high with 1,456 submissions (WCC, 2020b).

Analysis of responses to the open question provides an opportunity to explore Wellington public opinion of the future of Te Matapihi and its role in local life. While the circumstances of the consultation were very specific, the analysis can provide an indication of people’s views of public libraries more generally in the early decades of the twenty-first century. Library user or patron surveys have a long history in public libraries and remain a common feature of library strategic planning (Sørensen, 2020) but they are just that: user surveys. A range of different methods and approaches have been used to try to capture people’s opinions about library services (Sørensen, 2021), but achieving meaningful feedback from a broad range of community members about their public libraries remains something akin to the search for the holy grail for library service managers, although there have been studies reported in the literature of non-users’ views (McNicol, 2004; Fernández-Ardèvo, 2018; Philips, 2025). The consultation on the future of Wellington Central Library was city-wide and aimed to collect feedback from a broad spectrum of inhabitants about the possible role of the library in the life of the city and the services and facilities it should provide and, as such, the responses constitute a useful data set to analyze for contemporary views on public library purpose and provision. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), an examination of responses to the consultation can identify and highlight the meanings that respondents attach to the public library and the ideological values and concerns underpinning them. It can also contribute to our understanding of the community’s main preoccupations, concerns, and conceptualizations of public libraries and their role in contemporary society.

This research thus explores public perceptions of, and ideas about, public libraries identified from a CDA of responses to a public consultation on the future of Wellington Central Library. The main research question is:

1. What assumptions, values and ideologies about public libraries and their role in society emerge from a CDA of responses to a public consultation on a new central library?

Before outlining the research approach and presenting the analysis, we first review relevant literature on public consultations, including those conducted in library contexts, followed by an examination of previous studies of public perceptions of public libraries.

The literature on the topics of public consultation, and more recently electronic public consultation, are vast and of increasing academic interest (Shin et al., 2024). This work crosses a wide range of topics, and concerns including practical suggestions for those developing consultation practices (e.g. Nankivell, 2003), methods for assessing and evaluating their effectiveness (e.g. Cho et al., 2021), analysis of political and social aspects of processes (e.g. Nørbech, 2024), and critiques of processes (e.g. Powell, 2025).

In the context of Aotearoa, there have been studies of public consultations on a variety of topics (Sayes, 2020; Hardie et al., 2023). Ombler et al. (2016) note that public consultation is legally required by the Local Government Act 2002 and argue that there is a uniqueness to the situation in Aotearoa due to the relations between government and Māori groups and the bicultural context which acknowledges Māori as not only “another interest group” but “holders of sovereign käwanatanga (governance), tino rangatiratanga (control and self-determination) and ōritetanga (equity)” (p. 22). Sivak (2006) analysis of New Zealand’s Royal Commission of inquiry into genetic modification similarly acknowledges Aotearoa’s particular policy settings and views the Commission as a “cultural text”.

Public involvement in the design of new and refurbished public libraries has a long history and a range of co-design and participatory methods have been reported in the literature (Dudek, 1980; Haavisto, 2017). We do not review that literature here, however, because studies of participatory design in public libraries typically focus on co-design processes where small groups of community members collaborate directly with architects, designers, and librarians on new or renovated buildings. In contrast, the large-scale consultation exercise examined for this research was conducted by a city council as part of their statutory duty with the aim of gathering broad public input across a wide demographic. Rather than facilitating collaborative design workshops or similar, the process relied on the formal mechanisms of a survey and written submissions aiming for wider, more general input and consultation.

We identified one paper about public consultation in both an Aotearoa and a library context. Osborne and Gorman (2006) found that “community consultation” was a practice sometimes employed by public libraries in their collection development processes. Their study is concerned primarily with the effectiveness of the process, rather than the public views generated, and is not focused on the generation of feedback on strategic plans or future developments but on collecting operational information about users’ needs and preferences for library services. A report of a consultation exercise more closely related to that by Wellington City Council comes from Nankivell (2003) who describes the role and processes of consultation in the development of a new city center library in Birmingham, United Kingdom. While the consultation targeted users and non-users using a variety of approaches, the exercise was limited because it was run by the library service rather than the local council, and did not try to include all city inhabitants. It should be noted that this was before the widespread use of e-consultation or participation methods and Internet penetration in the UK was at around 65% (Statista, 2024). Nevertheless, over 1,400 people engaged in the consultation including children. Nankivell (2003) focuses primarily on describing the methods used in the consultation but does list some findings through which we can identify respondents’ perspectives on libraries more generally, e.g. that they should be welcoming, accessible spaces with a range of print and e-resources, and facilities for social and community gathering as well as quiet study.

Wakeling et al. (2022) report on public consultation approaches for six new library building projects in Australia. Taking a qualitative, interview-based approach, the authors discuss the community consultation processes used in planning the new libraries. They identified a wide range of consultation approaches from community-wide events to small group and individual discussions but conclude that the conventional methods used have their limitations. The emphasis in the paper is on the design of the consultation, rather than the outcome or using the data gathered through consultation as evidence of public perceptions of public libraries, as in this research.

There are, therefore, reports in the librarianship literature of the processes and outcomes of consultation processes for new library buildings (see also Rodríguez and Barreto, 2019) but few of them analyze the data collected to explore public understandings of public libraries more generally. Shipley and Utz (2012), in their overview of the literature on public consultation, argue that research on the topic falls into three categories: theory and rationale for public participation; approaches to conducting consultation and facilitating participation; and analysis and evaluation of participation. It should be noted that all three are ultimately concerned with the process of public participation – whether the consultation activities or approaches are successful or not. As Clark (2020) notes, research on public consultation and participation in local planning processes has thus generally focused on the design of consultation methods and how well they encourage citizen participation and feedback. This reveals a limitation in relevance of much of the literature on public consultation for the research reported here. Substantial contributions have been made to our understanding of how public consultations function as discursive events (Matthews and Satsangi, 2007; McGrath, 2009; Lithgow, 2019), yet the focus of the analysis is still largely on trying to improve these processes in terms of their policy outcomes and there is little research that analyzes consultation responses as evidence in their own right. In this paper, the focus is not on public engagement per se, but rather on public engagement as the generator of a significant body of evidence of public perspectives of public libraries.

While there have been studies of public perceptions of public libraries (e.g. McKenna-Aspell, 2023), and reports of public library consultation activities and approaches as discussed above, we could not identify any previous work on public consultation processes focused on analyzing public views and conceptualizations of public libraries more generally. Sørensen’s (2020) systematic literature review of empirical studies of stakeholder perceptions of the value of public libraries reported a variety of approaches to capturing community views of public libraries. Vakkari et al. (2016), for example, used a quantitative survey approach to collect data on the perceived benefits of public libraries across five countries, while Evjen and Audunson (2009) undertook focus group interviews to understand use and non-use of public libraries in Norway, as well as preferences for future developments. Xie and Sun (2021), taking a different approach, used content analysis of newspaper articles to explore public views of a new public library building in Macao and while the most prevalent issues raised related to the decision-making and planning processes for the building project, there was also some discussion around the nature, purpose, and target audience for the new library.

The closest parallel studies to this research in that they use a large dataset to examine public perceptions of the public library are those analyzing responses about public libraries in the United Kingdom’s Mass Observation Archive (MOA) ^[2], a large body of material from volunteers or “correspondents” who provide material to researchers based on their observations. Black and Crann (2002) issued a MOA “directive” ^[3] asking for correspondents’ impressions and opinions of public libraries. They note that while previous studies have focused on people’s opinions directed at improving service provision, their study was concerned with the role of the public library in society more broadly. In the MOA testimonies analyzed, Black and Crann (2002) find diverging opinions on the nature of public libraries at the beginning of the new century. Although they identify a high degree of affection and regard in the testimonies, they also report comments about dated, tired facilities and an institution that has not kept up with the times, concluding that, “The public library is an institution replete with ambiguities” (p. 156). In a later study of direct relevance to the research reported here, Black (2011) returns to the MOA to analyze evidence from a directive on public library buildings and the library as “place”. Black’s analysis focuses primarily on library design and architecture, but he also raises the theme of “libraryness”, a concept that he suggests minimizes considerations of style and highlights the importance of substance – the role of public libraries within the community and society and the services and facilities offered: “their value as places of enlightenment and intellectual as well as physical sanctuary” (p. 42).

Both Black (2006) and McNicol (2004) analyze responses to two MOA directives on public libraries from the 1980s and 1990s to explore correspondents’ perceptions of public libraries more generally, with McNicol focusing specifically on the responses of non-users and infrequent users. Although now dated, both authors discuss the value of the MOA for analyzing British people’s opinions and perceptions of public libraries and the context within which these are formed while acknowledging the limitations of the approach. MOA correspondents are an unrepresentative, self-selecting sample. Nevertheless, they note that the MOA can help us understand shifting attitudes towards public libraries (Black, 2006), including new knowledge not provided by more conventional approaches (McNicol, 2004).

This study takes a similarly unconventional path to reveal expectations of and ideas about public libraries. As discussed, we could identify no previous research that uses the evidence from a public consultation of plans for a new public library building to explore citizen perspectives on the role and value of public libraries more generally. Like analyses of MOA responses, this approach has its limitations, discussed below, but it provides a unique perspective on people’s ideas about the role of public libraries in a specific community and more widely, at a specific point in time. In so doing, it provides useful insights about what the community and its members value about the public library for strategic and planning purposes, and also contributes to our understanding of the role of this enduring social institution and how it is responding to changing societal needs and contextual shifts.

This project is a critical analysis of responses to a public consultation on the future of Wellington City Library undertaken in 2020. The collected data are responses to three of four open questions on the consultation form (WCC, 2020c) that asked respondents to consider the future of the Wellington Central Library, specifically the future of the building itself, the way that it connects to the immediate surrounding area, and their views on the current Wellington City Libraries network. The four open questions were:

1. Q6: Redeveloping the Central Library building for the next 50 years presents many opportunities. What could the Central Library be like, and what could it provide to support the community? This could include anything from physical spaces, services, programmes or partnerships with other organisations.

2. Q11: Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the future of the Central Library building?

3. Q24: Te Ngākau ^[4] has traditionally played an important role in Wellington, both as a public space in the central city and as the home of the City Council chambers and the Library. Is there anything you would like to share with us about the role Te Ngākau has or could have in terms of a public and democratic space in the central city?

4. Q27: What do you like about the interim Central Business District branches? Is there anything you would improve or change?

For this paper, the responses to the first three questions only were analyzed as the fourth was focused on a specific development in the organization of the library system in Wellington.

The open-ended questions were accompanied by several fixed-response ranking activities and box-check options as well as statistical data collection. One multi-choice question asked submitters to indicate their preferred option for the future of Te Matapihi:

1. Option A – Low-level remediation

2. Option B – Mid-level remediation

3. Option C – High-level remediation

4. Option D – New build on same site

5. Option E – New build on another Te Ngākau Civic Precinct site

6. None of the above, I prefer an alternative

The process was initiated, and run, by the Wellington City Council, the local government body administering Wellington City Libraries. Global Research were contracted by the Council to analyze the data and a report detailing their findings was presented to Council in October 2020 including a statistical analysis of responses to closed questions and some content analysis of open responses focused on the repair/rebuild process aspects of the consultation (WCC, 2020d). The analysis for this paper takes a different approach to that of the official report by focusing on the mass of responses offering thoughts and ideas about public library provision in Wellington and more generally, and applying techniques from CDA to explore public conceptions of the role of public libraries within the community and society. The approach aligns with that of Talja who describes the purpose of discourse analysis in library and information studies (LIS) thus: “the aim of discourse analysis is not only to identify interpretative repertoires, but to point out the power and influence of particular narratives and to analyze their potential societal and institutional functions and effects” (Talja, 1999, p. 474).

The data analyzed for the paper are in the public domain and were supplied by Wellington City Council in an accessible, anonymized format. As noted, the consultation included closed and open questions and because we were interested in responses to the open questions, we used Nvivo qualitative data analysis software to separate the open questions from the closed and then code the data by theme. The responses to the open questions submitted ranged in complexity, detail, and relevance and provide a unique perspective on Wellingtonians’ views of public libraries.

We combined techniques from CDA, corpus-assisted discourse analysis, and broader social and critical theory to examine the material. These approaches were used to examine the corpus of public submissions not as isolated responses, but as a collective discursive artifact reflecting shared and contested meanings about public libraries. While the individual submissions were often brief, taken together they form a corpus that enables the detection of recurring lexical patterns and discursive framings. As Baker (2010, pp. 121, 124) argues, corpora “have the potential to tell us as much about the values of societies they come from as they do about language … [they] are large enough to reveal repetitions or patterns which may run counter to intuition and are suggestive of discourse traces”. Corpus linguistics is undertaken on large datasets of naturally occurring text and is used to analyze how language is used in real-life contexts, focusing on patterns, frequency, and structures of words and phrases (Baker et al., 2008). This approach enables the identification of patterns, repetitions, and lexical structures that may not be immediately evident, offering a useful entry point into discourse analysis. Two central concepts in corpus linguistics were used to identify frequently occurring terms and their lexical relationships: “keyness and collocation” (Baker et al., 2008, p. 278). This enables an understanding of not just how frequently something occurs but also how it functions in the specific text being analyzed. For this research, the analysis of the corpus of responses was guided by the following questions:

1. What terms occur the most frequently?

2. How frequently, and how do they weight compared to others?

3. What terms occur least frequently?

These techniques helped us navigate the dataset and identify areas of discursive density, through:

1. Corpus mapping: We began by identifying high-frequency terms and collocations across the dataset. This included calculating relative frequencies and examining recurring ideas within the comments. This enabled us to navigate a large body of short responses and to identify frequently occurring terms and their synonyms, indicative of areas of shared concern and priority.

2. Discursive framing: Using CDA, we examined how these patterns framed ideas about public libraries. For instance, terms like “community hub”, “safe space”, and “meeting place” were not only frequent but appeared in contexts that positioned libraries as essential social infrastructure within the city. These framings were interpreted as indicators of underlying ideologies in relation to public libraries and their social value.

3. Categorization and theme identification: Similar and overlapping codes were grouped into broader categories that brought together related ideas about the public library. The categories were then analyzed discursively, leading to the development of higher-order themes that reflected shared framings in the corpus of the role and value of public libraries. These clusters formed the basis of the three broad topics presented in the Analysis section.

While these techniques are useful when dealing with a corpus like that discussed here, they do not, as Baker (2010, p. 141) notes, “take into account the social, political, historical and cultural context of the data under consideration”. However, they do provide a way to navigate large amounts of text, and to help identify the most productive aspects of a corpus to engage with. The insights gained from these techniques work in a dialectical relationship with the techniques of CDA; they are not discrete procedures, but complementary, and insights gained from each enriched the other. Developed primarily by Norman Fairclough (1992), CDA is an appropriate approach for this research because of its focus on discourse as social practice and the positioning of discourse as key sites of ideological reproduction and contestation. Research taking a CDA approach seeks to understand how discourse used in specific contexts acts as an indicator of knowledge, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes. For this research, we focus on discourse around the role and purpose of public libraries, and we explore the themes, language, and ideas about libraries that responders present in their submissions and how these discursive elements reflect ideologies about public libraries. We are interested in what the discourse reveals about submitters’ perspectives and expectations of the public library within their community and society more broadly.

CDA is an established research approach across many disciplines, including those of LIS and public policy. In LIS, CDA has been recently applied to studies of local media coverage of small and rural libraries (Sherman and Oakley, 2024) the use of soft power by the National Library of Australia (Bell, 2022), and the language used in library information literacy sessions (Dandar and Lacey, 2021). There are also examples of studies of public consultations taking a CDA approach, for example Wemyss (2013), Lithgow (2019), and Egan and Caulfield (2024). For this research, CDA provides a helpful framework for uncovering underlying ideologies in the texts of the submission to the consultation related to the role of value of public libraries in society.

The focus of the analysis is an exploration of the discursive framing of ideas about public libraries. When these were identified, the analysis focused on the orders of discourse – the socially organized ways in which we communicate in specific contexts (Fairclough, 1992) – in which they were functioning to reveal the values and ideologies related to public libraries embedded within the texts and consider what these tell us about the discursive world of public libraries in Wellington and beyond.

Respondents to public consultations often have strong opinions one way or the other about topic under consultation and may be motivated to share their opinions because they have a specific interest or preoccupation with the issue being considered (Barnes et al., 2003; Lundberg and Hysing, 2016; Li et al., 2020). Responders to the consultation were self-selecting and not representative of the population of Wellington; for example, just 4% were aged 16–34 (WCC, 2020d). A further limitation is that the data were not collected for the purpose of developing an understanding of respondents’ views of public library roles and value more generally, but for their perspectives on a set of specific questions relating to the future of Te Matapihi. The consultation questions were not designed to gather data to answer the research question posed in Section 1 and the data may not fully align with the purpose of this research. It is therefore important to note that the submissions were in response to a specific consultation process on a specific issue; namely that the central library building had been recently closed due to earthquake risk. Although the consultation document broadened the scope of its inquiry to include broader open questions as noted in Section 1, the focus of the consultation was on the library space and infrastructure and architectural issues, and the responses reflect this. However, while acknowledging the original purpose for the responses was different from the objectives of the research reported here and that they were not from a representative sample, we maintain that the research makes legitimate use of the data and that the analytical techniques have been applied appropriately and provide rich evidence of submitters’ assumptions, values, and ideologies about public libraries and their role in society.

Analysis of the responses to the consultation identifies three major themes that respondents engaged with when expressing their views on the roles and functions of public libraries in response to the questions detailed in 3.1. These themes are collections, spaces, and social and cultural contexts. As noted in 3.3, submitters were responding to questions focusing on the library building and how it could better support the community so the last two are unsurprising. The immediate closure of Te Matapihi, which made approximately 400,000 items suddenly inaccessible provides context for the emphasis on collections. Most of the responses were thus driven by particular contexts and prompts, whether explicit or as part of a larger discussion around the closure of Te Matapihi. We identified other recurring themes in the responses, such as financial concerns, heritage and aesthetics, engineering concerns, and local government competence. While significant, these are out of scope for this paper because of our focus on the discourse of the role and ideologies of public libraries. Also out of scope is any narrative disputing the need for libraries. There is little of this in the submissions, and it is not a clear or significant characteristic of the data. Additionally, the paper focuses on responders’ ideas about what the public library could and should be, rather than questions around its fundamental existence.

Within the three main themes, we identify a range of dominant narratives, discussed in this Analysis section.

We identify a strong tension in the responses between alternative visions for public libraries, and what Stevenson has called the “ghost in the stacks” (2019, p. 11), referring to an attachment to historically prominent aspects of library service and provision. While there is a general agreement that physical lending and reference collections are already only part of what a public library offers, there is a clear division between responses positioning physical collections as one aspect of many public library offerings, and those that signal some resentment of what they consider a devaluation of the physical collection, particularly the book collection. This is communicated particularly strongly in an emphasis on the importance of browsing, e.g. “[t]he Library should principally house – in a way the public can view – books” (data 343), and:

The narrative around a perceived undermining of the book collection is also evident in preoccupations about the size of the collection: “The current quantity of books is absolutely woeful” and “first and foremost the most important thing should be carrying large quantities of books” (data 430).

While the primacy of the physical book collection, and a perceived weakening of libraries’ commitment to maintaining it, is a strong current in the responses it runs against the dominant narrative evident in the submissions. This alternative account positions collections as certainly pivotal to conceptualizations of a library but just one aspect of a wide-ranging facility that should support the broader cultural and learning activities of the community:

Within this perspective, books and collections are represented as important, but their value lies mainly in how they work alongside and support and facilitate broader social goals. There is little agreement in the corpus of what these goals are, but there is a general sense of support for the community provision of various services and activities. These include spatial services (meeting rooms, desks for study, etc.), research and literacy services (such as classes and programmes), and/or support for hosting or partnering with third-party organizations (Citizens Advice Bureaux, sports amenities, cafes, etc.). There is also a strong narrative advocating for broadening the scope of library collections including calls for the lending of tools or technical equipment: “things that people may want to use occasionally, or try out, but can’t afford to buy” (data 165).

The book collection is positioned in the submissions as core to the whole idea of a library and as a service that meets the needs of individuals and society, but there are competing ideas expressed around the extent to which the role of the public library is to support or provide additional social functions, and what those functions should be.

Because the consultation is about the central library building, narratives around space are, unsurprisingly, prominent. Even when responses focus ostensibly on other topics, discussion of library space and its use is pronounced. The comments about collections and books in 4.1 are ultimately about space, for example, and the competing priorities for it. Ideas around library space are many and varied, including comments about the library as quiet study or reflection space, learning space, digital inclusion space, social space, “third place” (Oldenburg, 1999), and safe inclusive space for the marginalized and vulnerable. One submission encapsulates these effectively:

Space is discussed as deeply entwined with social contexts and library services; indeed, it is positioned as both a context and a service itself. To an extent, the Te Matapihi redevelopment offered submitters and other stakeholders a tabula rasa onto which they inscribe their aspirations for a particular version of a “non-market” social space. This may be prompted by the framing of the consultation document that emphasizes the library supporting the community, as well as by prior use of Te Ngākau which housed Te Matapihi, the City Art Gallery, event venues, cafes, and council administration buildings around a large open space. It is clear from their framing that the Council envisages the Te Matapihi rebuild as playing an important role in providing “a public and democratic space in the central city” (Q.24 on the submission form) and this may have influenced respondents’ submissions, discussed further in 4.3. Nevertheless, the framing seems to be largely accepted by respondents. Where an alternative narrative arises, it often does not directly or completely reject the Council’s conceptualization of a library as a kind of Habermasian public sphere institution, but instead privileges competing visions for the space within which other uses of library space are positioned as weakening the focus on book provision and although there is no suggestion that library space should not be used for activities beyond book provision, these should be contingent on prioritizing space for collections and the browsing of books. This suggests a hierarchy in submitters’ ideas about uses for library space which, while not necessarily exclusive, is still ordered, with space for books at the apex. The hierarchy is clear in the following response and its comment about “secondary amenities”:

Nonetheless, an alternative narrative about the public library as a community space capable of supporting a wide range of activities is strongly evident in the submissions with many not mentioning books directly:

Interestingly, though, as in the comment above, the word “library” is used as a synonym or indicator of books throughout the corpus, e.g.: “Primarily a library. The building could also house other amenities or organizations if space permits, but not at the expense of library space.” (data 210). So, although, some submissions do not explicitly reference books, there is an assumption that they will have prominence and even pre-eminence. This is unsurprising; popular definitions of libraries emphasize their role as containers of collections of books and other materials (e.g. Wikipedia, 2025). Of more interest is the narrative denoting clear acceptance of libraries as community hubs and places for social connection, reflecting wider professional and scholarly conceptualizations of the broadening of the role of public libraries in society (Lankes, 2016; Gibson et al., 2017; Dalmer et al., 2022), discussed further in 4.3.

Another notable narrative is one that references other recent library builds in Aotearoa and overseas, expressing aspirations to emulate what are considered successful models of library provision and space elsewhere, develop a landmark building and implying that Wellington is behind the times with other places having something the city lacks. References to Waitohi, Johnsonville’s new public library are numerous as evidenced above but the most mentioned is Christchurch’s Tūranga, the replacement for the Christchurch Central Library demolished in the redesign of the central city following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and opened in 2018. A common feature of this discussion is that it often builds on responses indicating that the council should demolish the existing building and construct a new one, rather than rebuild or remediate:

A certain degree of envy marks this discussion, signaling a desire to have something another city has: “When you compare [the current library] with Christchurch, the difference is remarkable” (data 1,109), as well as some one-upmanship: “I have (briefly) visited the new library in Christchurch; ours could be even better” (data 58). It also conveys indications of what a library could and should be, using the example of Tūranga to express ideas about the role and function of libraries, as well as their design:

The consultation document asks submitters to reflect on the place of the library within the socio-cultural environment and practices by asking: “what could [the central library] provide to support the community?” (Q6), as well as the question about its location within Te Ngākau (Q24). As noted in 4.1 and 4.2, a framing of a public library as a community resource is clear, but other prominent ideas within this theme are also apparent, reflecting conceptualizations of libraries as centers for community activities and ideas about their relationship with the surrounding city, including nearby businesses.

A prominent narrative within this theme positions the public library as a social and cultural hub within the city where people gather for diverse activities, discussions, and support: “I feel the central library and civic square are at the heart of Wellington. I see them as places that people come to learn, share, participate and engage as citizens of our city” (data 786). There are important ideas about the public library’s role in supporting inclusivity, social equity, and communal, civic life evident here, conveyed in aspirations for a space that is accessible and welcoming to all, including the most vulnerable in society: “It’s so important for our homeless community as a warm safe place you can go hang out and not have to pay for” (data 1,353). A focus on the public library as a social equalizer is apparent, providing free access to information, technology, resources, and space as well as connecting people with others within the community: “Safe spaces; free Internet; programmes to support those with fewer advantages” (data 716).

Comments focusing on the library’s place within the city landscape describe a reciprocal relationship between the library and the surrounding city with each supporting and enriching the other and the library positioned as an essential element of the dynamic heart of the city: “A reinvigorated library building – that draws thousands of people to civic square every day – is essential to the success of civic square” (data 557). These submissions conceptualize the new library as a landmark building in the city that connects to other nearby cultural and civic facilities either already present or planned and encourages people to spend time in the city center:

Here, the responses envisage the library as playing a national and civic role. A clear strand running through this framing is that Te Ngākau is currently neglected and dilapidated and has become a “graveyard of closed buildings” (Campbell and Manera, 2024) due to earthquake-strengthening works. In this scenario, submitters position the library as a savior of the civic square area, an attraction to revitalize and strengthen the physical location and thus the city’s energy and spirit. Additional elements are envisaged as encouraging this revival including a strong thread about the need for a café, preferably at precinct level with outdoor seating available. Visions are presented of the library bordering a space akin to a European piazza: “I would like to see the cafe have indoor/outdoor link, flat access to the plaza. Plaza use to include more vendors, chairs, tables, children, buskers, so that there is a hive of activity. Chess, boules, toddler space, installations and small events” (data 313). Prospective economic benefits of this development centered on a library as a landmark destination are also evident, with a view of the library attracting diverse groups of people to the city center and encouraging higher foot traffic to the benefit of local retail and other nearby businesses:

Our analysis details how the discourse about public library roles and value is constructed within the three key themes of collections, space, and social and cultural contexts in the corpus of submissions to the public consultation on the future of Wellington Central Library. Ideas about collections prioritize space for a large collection of printed materials, particularly books, and emphasize the importance of browsing. A competing and stronger narrative, though, supports the provision of the book collection alongside a range of other services, facilities, and activities indicating a wider conceptualization of public libraries in the discourse. This extends to the theme of space where submitters envisage the public library as an open, accessible facility, welcoming to all and capable of supporting varied social, cultural, and civic purposes. A notable feature of discussions of space in the discourse is the inspiration drawn from other recently built or renovated libraries, marked by a preference for replicating aspects of their designs in a new library in Wellington. References to the social and cultural context within the discourse are more specifically tied to the specific local environment and concerns about the condition of Te Ngākau, with the new library positioned as a (if not the) key element for its revitalization. We reflect on the meaning of these elements of the discourse in Section 5.

The narratives identified through the analysis interact and often compete, reflecting different priorities, values, and power relations in shaping how public libraries are viewed and what functions they serve in society. The consultation documents no doubt played a crucial role in framing the discourse, shaping and privileging certain possibilities for and perspectives on the future of the new Wellington Central Library. The questions asked frame the library as a community and social hub and asset with the potential to foster social connections, equity, and community well-being. The consultation documents also position the library as a potentially powerful catalyst for revitalization, driving social, cultural, and even economic renewal of Te Ngākau Civic Square and its surroundings. The representation of the library as social infrastructure (Klinenberg, 2018) aligns with research and literature exploring public libraries as inclusive public spaces (Serra and Revez, 2024); one of the few remaining free, safe indoor public spaces where people can gather and encounter others from their community without needing to consume or spend (Forrest, 2022; Adams and Krtalić, 2022). Participants in the consultation process respond positively to this framing of the public library as essential social infrastructure and there is evidence of widespread acceptance of the Council’s vision of Te Matapihi as a space that welcomes all with the aim of strengthening community interactions and cohesion.

A narrative of civic pride also runs through the corpus. There are perceptions that the city of Wellington has struggled in recent years, perhaps even more so since the consultation was undertaken and the restrictions on movement and activity brought by COVID-19 (MacManus, 2020). In the responses, there is often a sense that the new Central Library set within a redeveloped civic square quarter can play a key role in bringing people back into the city, strengthening community connections and reinvigorating the city’s spirit. New and well-supported libraries can be a source of civic pride (Yamagishi et al., 2024), encouraging a sense of ownership and engagement. The frequent mention of Tūranga in comments reflecting on future possibilities for Te Matapihi is noteworthy. Tūranga was the first major new or refurbished public building to open in the wake of the devastating Christchurch earthquake of 2011 and the subsequent immense and lengthy city center rebuilding and redevelopment process. For many in Christchurch, the opening of Tūranga symbolized the city’s resilience and regeneration and it remains a strong focus of civic pride (QWB Lab, 2020). Following some difficult years for Wellington and persistent ongoing challenges, the re-opening of Te Matapihi is eagerly anticipated as the community looks forward to having a modern, accessible library once again. Responders’ comments indicate that the new library has the capacity to serve as a point of pride for Wellingtonians, contributing to the renewal and reinvigoration of the city center.

The narratives focused on the place of the library in the broader cityscape reflect key ideas about the role of public libraries in urban life and align with scholarly and professional literature on public libraries. The narratives often touch on themes of democracy, community, culture, education, and economic development. The library is sometimes positioned as “the people’s university” (Black, 2006), providing free access to knowledge, information, and other resources as well as supporting civic and digital engagement (Buschman, 2024; Kranich, 2024). The idea of the public library as “third place” (Wood, 2021) where people from diverse backgrounds can gather, and providing space and services for marginalized groups (Campana et al., 2022) is also prominent in responders’ comments. The library as a cultural landmark within the city is discussed above and reflects discussions in the literature about the symbolic value of new public library buildings as representations of civic pride and cultural investment (Skot-Hansen et al., 2013; Cole and Stenström, 2021; Kawamoto and Koizumi, 2023), as well as drivers of economic revitalization (Ryan et al., 2023).

Nevertheless, although the framing of the consultation and responders’ comments emphasize the library as a community and civic anchor with a focus on its accessibility, safety, inclusivity, and role in strengthening engagement and connections, the number of comments focusing on the book collection is striking. None of the open questions in the consultation document specifically asks about books, but it is evident that physical books are pivotal to the library experience for many (Ruthven et al., 2023). The attachment to books in public libraries is rooted in emotional, cultural, and practical considerations (Hider et al., 2023), including the value of serendipity (McKay et al., 2019), access issues, and their symbolism as carriers of knowledge – “the authority of the printed word” (Spowage and Toth, 2024, p. 515). People’s continuing connection to the presence of printed books in public libraries is clear in responders’ comments and appears steadfast despite the extensive provision of e-resources and evidence of their rising acceptance, particularly marked since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (Ricketts, 2025). There is some sense in the comments that libraries are perhaps neglecting their role as book repositories and providers of traditional formats and content. For these responders, the public library’s mission to provide free access to a large collection of books and literature must not be overlooked in the drive to modernize services and widen their remit. The shift towards libraries as community and social hubs discussed above raises a dilemma for library managers as they balance the storage and space requirements of physical book collections with the need for space for digital technologies, community programming, events, and seating areas. Ideas around shelving in public libraries are evolving and while responders called for “plenty of books on shelves”, libraries focus increasingly on accommodating print collections in ways that maximize accessibility, inclusivity and user experience (Palmer, 2022) which may well conflict with the desire for “large quantities of books”. It is worth noting that before closure, Te Matapihi was home to 400,000 volumes; the new library will open with 250,000 (WCC, n.d.a).

As noted in section 3.2, we were also interested in the terms that occurred less frequently in the corpus. One narrative in particular is notable for its relative absence. There is little mention of the bicultural context within which the development of Te Matapihi is taking place. In Aotearoa, awareness of the role of libraries in supporting the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi – the nation’s founding document) has been growing since the 1990s (MacDonald, 1993). As public institutions, public libraries have a responsibility to honor Te Tiriti through their services, policies, and relationships with local Iwi (tribes) and Māori communities and although the development of Te Matapihi reflects partnership with mana whenua ^[7] in both physical design and service development (WCC, 2025; WCC, n.d.b), comments on this aspect in the corpus are limited. A simple word count shows the word “Māori” occurs just 21 times throughout the corpus. This is perhaps unsurprising given that neither the consultation nor the submission form includes the word. Similarly, there is no mention of partnership with mana whenua in the consultation documentation, although the proposal document does translate the mayor’s introduction into te reo Māori. Given the Council’s responsibilities under Te Tiriti, the comments of one responder may be pertinent here: “Y’all need more Māori presence” (data 167). In personal correspondence, Laurinda Thomas (WCC Manager of Libraries, Community Spaces and Archives) commented that mana whenua were consulted separately but their feedback does not appear in the main corpus nor is it publicly available. She also noted that the consultation took place prior to WCC’s signing the Tākai Here (WCC, 2022) documents with mana whenua and that significant change had taken place in council – mana whenua relations since the consultation and that such an omission in the consultation documents would be unlikely now (Thomas, personal communication, 13 March 2025).

A couple of narratives run through the comments that included mention of Māori. One is the imperative to partner with mana whenua and respect Te Tiriti obligations. The other emphasizes the importance of incorporating Māori, and Pasifika design features to reinforce and respect Indigenous cultural presence, perspectives, and values to distinguish and differentiate Te Matapihi as a library of Aotearoa and Te Whanganui a Tara ^[8], linking with the discussion of the library as a symbol of the city and a source of civic pride. As noted, the framing of the consultation has an impact on the discourse and the limited commentary on Indigenous and Māori aspects of the new building is likely a reflection of their absence in the consultation documentation.

The limitations of the methodological approach taken are noted in section 3.3, and we acknowledge that this analysis represents a snapshot of views of an unrepresentative sample of one city at one point in time in response to a specific event. Moreover, the consultation took place in July 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. The restrictions implemented to slow the spread of the disease and the changes in people’s behavior as a result may well have impacted views on a range of issues related to library service provision since the consultation. The study nevertheless highlights community views and attitudes towards public libraries and their role in society more generally, encapsulated within responses to a specific consultation. Respondents’ submissions were no doubt impacted by the frames of discourse imposed by the consultation process, but the social narratives identified through the analysis contribute to our understanding of collective understanding and public sentiment about public libraries.

While acknowledging the likely effect of the frames of discourse, it is notable that despite the consultation proposal document and questions in the submission form being focused strongly on space and design considerations, narratives around books, reading, and collections are prominent in the discourse indicating that a more conventional appreciation of “libraryness” (Black, 2011) remains strong. The library-as-social-infrastructure narrative is also pronounced, however, focused on visions of the new library as a public space that builds community, fosters connections, and provides a safe, welcoming environment for diverse groups including the marginalized. Although these two main libraryness narratives are occasionally positioned as competing, the overall impression of the discourse is that of collections forming part of a multi-purpose, multi-use space that should accommodate a range of activities and functions and be flexible to adapt to the changing needs of the community.

The findings of this study are situated within the specific social, political, and cultural context of Aotearoa and specifically Wellington but they raise issues of broader relevance. Future research could explore whether similar consultation exercises in other regions and cultural settings have comparable outcomes. Notably, although public libraries in Aotearoa operate within a bicultural framework that recognizes the rights of Māori as mana whenua, explicit references to indigeneity and cultural diversity were not strongly evident in the consultation responses. Their relative absence may reflect a perception among respondents that such commitments are deeply embedded in Aotearoa and thus taken for granted. It may also signal the normative expectation that public libraries honor Māori as partners under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, a principle generally accepted within local and central government processes although recent shifts in national policy discourse have begun to challenge this understanding. The significance of engaging meaningfully with Indigenous peoples is likely to resonate in other contexts, however, and future comparative studies could usefully explore these dynamics across diverse cultural and political settings.

The impact of the consultation responses on policy and decision-making related to Te Matapihi is unclear. A majority of submissions favored demolition, for example, but the Council opted for remediation and refurbishment (WCC, n.d.c). Similarly, as noted above, the pleas for “more books” do not seem to have made an impression as the number of available items will be reduced by nearly half. Nevertheless, the volume of submissions to the consultation is heartening and shows a sustained interest in public libraries and their futures. Analysis of the responses identified some very thoughtful comments particularly around the role of the library in relation to Māori and other communities. Although these may have been few and far between, they demonstrate a nuanced conceptualization of libraries and how Te Matapihi can partner with and engage diverse communities with varied perspectives on the nature of knowledge, understanding, and learning, providing a true “window to the wider world”.