Jane Riach
Jane Riach is the new manager at Ashburton Library. Jane began this role after the previous, long-term manager, Jill Watson, retired, following her initial role in a NZ Libraries Partnership Programme-funded position.
Jane originally began her library career at Christchurch City Libraries. She also worked in school and tertiary libraries at the College of Education Library, which was then in Karori, Wellington. Jane did the New Zealand Library Schools Certificate at the School of Library Studies in Wellington while working at Christchurch City Libraries. Jane enjoyed the six-week modules on campus and then going back to the library and applying that knowledge. “Every time I came back from Wellington, I was able to move to a different section of the library and use what I had learnt. Christchurch City Libraries was a wonderful training ground.”
From there, she moved into being a rep for Penguin Books. “This was a fantastic job. I adored working with book sellers and retailers who have such a passion for books.“
Then Jane moved into hospitality, running her own café. “Hospitality is really cut-throat –to be successful, you have to work hard at relationships, creating a point of difference and forming strong connections in the local community to engender customer loyalty. This was also an amazing experience.”
Next Jane trained as a massage therapist, worked as a massage tutor and set up her own massage business.
Jane moved to Ashburton at the end of 2018, along with her partner and parents, who had relocated from Central Otago. She did a lot of voluntary work in the community at that time, working hard to create connections in this new community.
CREATING COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
When COVID arrived, Ashburton Library was looking at a new building and exploring taking on new staff through the NZLPP funding. Jane came into the team as the Community Connections Lead – her role was to grow connections into the community so that the library’s programmes would better reflect community needs.
“That’s how I got back into libraries. The professional development resources and networking opportunities that came with the NZLPP were wonderful and I took advantage of all of them.”
Those connections with people and maintaining relationships in the community are also important. “The council had the vision of the library being a ‘Living room for the community’ and the only way for that to come to fruition is by the community having a sense of ownership and so that means we have to understand and work effectively with our community.“
Jill Watson, the previous manager, had been at Ashburton Library for 50 years until her retirement, and Jane was appointed to take over in August.
This means a significant change in leadership, and several staff members have been there for decades. Jane’s position is a two-year fixed-term position. That’s not a lot of time to make changes!
“I aim to make my mark while I’m here,” says Jane. ”And I want to take people with me on these changes.”
Now in a beautiful new purpose-built building, Te Whare Whakatere, with the library service known as Te Kete Tuhinga. There are fabulous facilities: an audiovisual studio, a learning lab, a maker space, and beautiful spaces for children and young adults to be in.
ASHBURTON TEAM AND PROGRAMMES
The Ashburton Library team is made up of 10 full-time equivalent staff with a team of 19. The library is open every day of the week, including three evenings until 8 pm for a total of 65 hours a week.The senior librarian Nicky and technical librarian Phoebe keep the library running day to day from a team and systems perspective.
Jay the digital programmes lead runs the maker space and coordinates digital programmes, oversees the AV studio alongside an AV tech assistant and digital programmes assistant.
Stacey the community connections lead maintains existing relationships with the community and forms new ones, creates new programmmes for and with the community, and runs the library social media alongside a community library assistant.
Ashburton Libraries were part of the DIAA pilot programme for digi coaches and chose to continue the programme as it was hugely popular. With a large elderly population needing support with digital devices and online services, continuing the digi coaching has been a priority for Ashburton Library.
“We have a youth librarian, Anna, who works very hard to get rangatahi engagement. The old library wasn’t attractive to youth, and it's been a slow burn. The challenge has been finding the things rangatahi want to do – and they are finally being taken up. The last school holidays had a great uptake of the programmes the youth librarian, Anna, ran, and her maker space Mondays and Sub Boxes have taken off.”
Jonathan, Celeste and Carla keep the children’s area running. The priority here is on early literacy services – weekly wriggle and read sessions and STEM sessions were the perfect platform from which to launch their ‘1000 books before school’ programme. The programme is designed for 0 – 5years and encourages whānau to read 1000 books to their pepi and Tamariki before they go to school. Along the way they mark their progress in a booklet and collect milestone rewards to keep the enthusiasm high. The library leaned on their connection with Altrusa to fund the printing of the booklets.
“How fabulous we are in this sector in regard to sharing our experience and knowledge – I really love that we are happy for people to follow our map.”
Reading with Oi, a certified canine friend who listens without judgement, is also a programme they run to encourage whānau to spend time with books and children.
THERE’S NO TYPICAL DAY FOR A LIBRARY MANAGER
There is no typical day in Jane’s role. Every day is different. It’s budget time now, so that’s a big focus – never easy in the council environment.
“I’m also looking at how we can free up our people resource to spend more time with the community. One thing we are doing is outsourcing the purchasing and processing of books. We work with PeterPal for most of the collections and Scorpio Books for specialist books. Teams of our size can't afford to have team members spending a lot of time out the back cataloguing and purchasing books. We need to be out front with library users and engaging our community.”
There are knitting and spinning groups and book clubs using the library. Many of the Ashburton library programmes are collaborations with community groups, such as brain injury and dementia groups, gardening conversation group, neurodiverse brick club, dungeons and dragons.
“Recently we held a Lifelong Learning Festival which involved 40 different groups offering opportunities for academic as well as craft and other learning. While we collaborated with Keep Learning Mid Canterbury, it was a huge undertaking bringing it together. Seeing the large and diverse turnout from our community was very affirming. The creation of those opportunities to connect fosters a genuine environment of community resilience, allowing people to know where to go and who to turn to.”
“We're looking to meet the learning and social needs for our community where we can”
Jane is beginning the six-month performance development review check in her library. “I have been thinking about the professional development for my team. One of the things that struck me when I looked at the new LIANZA CPD pathway was the lovely balance across the areas of interest and expertise our library kaimahi work in.”
01 December 2025
