to acting as the division
responsible for the headquarters work of the Service, has continued to
promote the cooperative use of library resources. Staff at headquarters
are still working under very difficult conditions and there is a
continuing and pressing need both for administrative working space and
adequate housing for the book collections.

_Inter-library Loan_--All inter-library loan requests for books and
periodicals the location of which is not known are sent to the National
Centre. Items which are not found in the Union Catalogue of non-fiction
books, the _Union List of Serials_, or other bibliographical sources are
listed in the weekly publication _Book Resources_, which is sent to 39
libraries for checking.

1956-57 1957-58
Number % Number %

Interloan cards received 7,197 100.0 7,640 100.0
Supplied from National Library Service 4,312 59.9 4,411 57.7
Supplied from other Wellington libraries 171 2.4 139 1.8
Supplied from Union Catalogue records 949 13.2 1,055 13.8
Supplied from _Union List of Serials_ 101 1.4 173 2.3
Not supplied for various reasons 641 8.9 664 8.7
Listed on _Book Resources_ 1,023 14.2 1,198 15.7

Four hundred and seventy-five titles not found in any library were
ordered for national stock.

The number of requests received by the centre represents probably less
than half the total volume of traffic among New Zealand libraries, the
proportion of direct interloan being higher in the special and
university libraries. Interloan was devised and introduced among
libraries by the New Zealand Library Association and in its operation
the responsibility of the National Library Service is not merely to act
as a clearing house but to provide all the material it reasonably can to
make the system effective. Other libraries participate reciprocally, or
lend so that they may the more freely borrow. The contribution, as has
always been expected, is a varying one and one or two libraries may
consider that they have a substantial and unrealisable credit balance in
their favour. The point beyond which certain libraries may feel they
cannot go in the common interest has not so far been determined
administratively but it may be necessary to consider this. If so, it is
b