New Zealanders have delivered a resounding vote of confidence in their local libraries, with a major new survey finding the country’s public libraries are doing far more than lending books. They are helping people read, learn, find work, raise children and feel they belong.
The findings come from the second annual Community Impact Survey released this month by Public Libraries New Zealand, the body that represents the country’s library network. More than 14,000 people filled in the survey during the second half of 2025, drawn from users of 65 public libraries and the more than 300 branches they run from one end of the country to the other.
Respondents were asked to rate their library on 12 questions, each scored from one to five, with the average across all responses producing an overall impact score for the network. The picture that emerged was strongly positive, and in several areas the scores had climbed sharply since the first survey was carried out in 2024.
Reading remained the heart of what libraries do. Almost 87 percent of people said their library encouraged a love of reading, the single highest result in the survey with an impact score of 4.5 out of five. Close behind, 85.6 percent said visiting the library lifted their happiness and general wellbeing, a result that scored 4.4. For an institution often pictured as a quiet room full of shelves, those are striking numbers about how libraries make people feel.
Some of the biggest gains were in confidence and independence. More than half of those surveyed, 53.3 percent, said the library had helped them feel more independent or self assured, a jump from 30.7 percent the year before. That is a rise of almost 23 percentage points in a single year, one of the steepest movements anywhere in the survey. The share of people who said the library had improved their literacy also rose, from 38 percent to 47.4 percent.
The sense of belonging that libraries create came through clearly as well. Just under 73 percent of people said their library helped them feel part of their community, up three points on the previous year, for an impact score of 4.2. About a third of users said the library supported them as parents, with scores reflecting the role libraries play in story times, school holiday programmes and a warm, free space for families to spend an afternoon.
Libraries are also quietly supporting te reo Māori. Almost a quarter of respondents, 23.7 percent, said their library had helped them learn or use the language, a rise of more than four points on 2024. While the impact score in that area sat lower than reading or wellbeing, the upward trend points to libraries becoming a more comfortable place for people to take their first steps with the language.
Tiffany Rawlings, chair of the Public Libraries New Zealand executive committee and a library manager in Masterton, was the lead author of the report. She said the latest results showed libraries moving well beyond their traditional role. The figures pointed to “a clear shift toward deeper, high-value social outcomes particularly in confidence, literacy, and community connection”, she said.
That shift matters because public libraries are one of the few genuinely universal services left in New Zealand. There is no membership fee, no need to spend money once you are through the door, and no expectation that you arrive for any particular reason. People come to borrow a novel, sit out of the cold, use a computer, get help filling in a form, attend a class, or simply be among other people. The survey suggests that breadth is exactly what gives libraries their value.
It also lands at a time when councils across the country are weighing tight budgets and looking hard at every service they fund. Libraries are usually paid for by local ratepayers, which means their hours, staffing and programmes can rise or fall with each council’s spending decisions. The survey report argues that the case for keeping them well resourced is now backed by hard numbers rather than sentiment alone.
Its central conclusion was blunt on that point. New Zealand’s public libraries are delivering measurable, meaningful impact, the report found, and with sustained investment will remain essential to thriving, connected and resilient communities. In other words, the gains shown in the survey are not guaranteed to continue unless the funding behind them holds.
The 14,000 responses gathered this time give the network a far richer picture of itself than it had even a year ago, and the consistency of the results across so many libraries and branches gives the findings real weight. From small rural branches open a few days a week to busy city central libraries, the message from users was much the same. The local library is a place that helps them read more, learn more, and feel more at home in their own town.
For a service that rarely makes headlines, it is a quietly remarkable report card, and a reminder that some of the most useful things a community owns are the ones that ask nothing of you when you walk in.
Do you have a local library that has made a difference in your life? Tell us about it in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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