It is the brainchild of community worker Natasha Rerekura and one of the soup kitchen's regulars, Muigal Kimani, more commonly known as Kim Sawa Sawa.

"We inspired each other to set this up," Rerekura said.

"The reason it started was I noticed with some of the guys that they were avid readers but there was no place for them to read."

The closure of the central library had taken away a major indoor space where they could go and the replacement pop-up centres, such as Arapaki on Manners St, didn't have the same kind of space for them.

A call went out for books and people quickly responded: a few dozen different books came in, more than enough to help fill the space.

Rerekura said some of the most popular books were ones on culture, classic cars, travel and crosswords.

She'd noticed too that the guys would talk about what they were reading with each other.

Compassion Soup Kitchen manager Gary Sutton said the space the library was installed in was a place where people accessing their services could relax in during the day, in an environment where they were treated with dignity - a major value underpinning the work of the Soup Kitchen.

"We feel like collectively we're doing something together here. We provide the books and the space and we try to support our guests as best we can," he said, "They do see each other as a whanau."

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

They have been assisted by Hans Arns who is the project coordinator of Sharing the Word an initiative linking up Catholic seminary libraries and librarians throughout the world.

This is being done to provide all seminarians and theology students in Africa, Asia and Oceania with the best possible resources.

Sharing the Word hopes to give every Catholic theological student equal access to the world's best resources.

At present most seminary libraries in Africa, Asia and Oceania are isolated and poorly resourced.

This lack of resources affects the ability of the students to learn and achieve.

The Pontifical Mission Societies in Australia (known as Catholic Mission) is the lead agency for the Sharing the Word project.

The first step in the project is updating libraries and providing online resources is to install a computerised library automation system (catalogue) in every library.

The system was brought online in 2013 and is hosted in Sydney.

This means Sharing the Word is taking care of backing up the data and maintaining the system software.

When PRS began the work of cataloguing, the internet connectivity was slow and unreliable.

To provide uninterrupted service to the library the software and the data were duplicated on the local server.

The library used the local system to record loans and returns where necessary.

The updated data was then automatically sent to Sydney whenever the internet was available.

Internet reliability and speed is not an issue any more in Suva and it will not be an issue anywhere in the near future.

Catholic Mission will also assist each seminary to acquire a server and a number of workstations the librarians and students can use to access the available resources.

Hans is now busy finding free and up-to-date material that seminary students will all be able to access once the system has been installed in their seminary.

Who is using Sharing the Word?

Source

• Sharing the Word
• Image: Pacific Regional Seminary

One of the books is "And Tango Makes Three", which is based on the true story of two male penguins which raised a chick in a New York Zoo.

The others are "White Swan Express", about children adopted by straight, gay, single and mixed-race parents, and "Who's in My Family" which features gay couples.

The National Library Board has 26 public libraries stocking five million books.

The books to be pulped are against its "pro-family" stance, the NLB stated, adding that its decision came after a complaint by a parent and an internal review.

The move has angered Singapore's arts and literary community, where it has been labelled "book burning".

Prominent local writer Ng Yi-Sheng said the NLB should have reached a "compromise solution, such as putting the books in adult lending or even the reference section".

A group of writers scheduled to speak at an NLB event about humour pulled out in protest.

But Singapore's information minister Yaacob Ibrahim said in a Facebook post the NLB's decision was "guided by community norms".

Sex between men is illegal in Singapore and is punishable by up to two years in jail under a provision in the penal code dating back to British colonial rule.

Singapore officials have promised that the city's gay community will not be hounded under this law.

But it has not been repealed because most of the city-state's citizens still do not accept homosexuality.

A survey of 4000 citizens by the government-linked Institute of Policy Studies earlier this year found that 78.2 per cent of Singaporeans believe same-sex relations are wrong.

Earlier this month, Singapore's Catholic Archbishop William Goh apologised for being insensitive to same-sex people in a pastoral letter.

In the letter, he wrote that the LGBT lifestyle is detrimental to society and contrary to Christian values.

In a later clarification, he said in using words like "detrimental" and "destructive", he was referring to same-sex couples adopting children.

The Church does not disapprove of a loving relationship between same-sex individuals that is chaste and faithful, the archbishop explained.

Sources

• The Telegraph
• Ecumenical News
• Catholic News Singapore
• Image: All In Singapore