Ready for new chapter

Otorohanga librarian Jocelyn Holt has turned the page on work and started a new chapter in her life entitled 'retirement'.

Mrs Holt stamped her last book on Monday, after a quarter of a century at the Otorohanga District Council-run library.

When she began her career, 25 years ago, the library was at the council headquarters on the corner of Maniapoto and Balance Sts. But in recent years the library has moved to Otorohanga Village Green where Mrs Holt has since worked among an estimated 70,000 books.

Her main duty, she said, was covering new books in plastic when they arrived at the library as well as helping the public with their enquiries and stamping books.

The advent of computers, she said, had changed her working practice, making it a lot easier to keep track of which books are in and out and reducing the amount of work necessary to do so.

"It's been wonderful working in our new library, which is central and overlooking the Village Green. I have always enjoyed working with the public and being able to help people choose books and it's the customers who I will greatly miss," said Mrs Holt. Two such customers she remembered with trepidation.

"One person once came in and asked for a book on making bombs and another wanted a book on embalming and I couldn't help either of them," she said.

"You never know what the next question is going to be."

Putting books aside, Mrs Holt, who counts The Grapes of Wrath and Pride and Prejudice among her favourites, plans to spend more time with husband Dick, who took semi-retirement as Otorohanga District Council's building inspector 18 months ago but has been working part-time as a Civil Defence officer.

"My husband actually fully retires today too," she said.

"We want to travel a bit more, all over New Zealand, and I aim to get my golf handicap down," she said as a decade-long member of Waitomo Golf Club.