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Mysteries in the archives
Late last year Keith Stuart (Senior Archivist, Auckland Council Archives), made an intriguing discovery. While he was looking through a box containing Tuakau Borough Council committee minutes, Keith...
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Hall’s corner: the heart of Takapuna
There was once a time when Hall’s Corner was Takapuna.The Lake or Lake Takapuna, as the settlement was widely known from the 1840s through to the 1920s, began its Pākehā history as a rural settlement...
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The Sun rises and sets and is now online
April 2021 sees the arrival of another Auckland daily newspaper in the online research community. The Sun (Auckland) provides new insights into Auckland almost one hundred years ago. The newspaper ran...
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Books become music: a century of music score covers
A corner of the upper basement at the Central City Library is home to a substantial part of Auckland Libraries’ extensive sheet music collection. At any one time the mechanical tick of the lights on...
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Drumroll! Bruce Fuller, Rudy & the Crystals, and The Ensigns in the 1960s
It is the fascinating, and sometimes humorous stories behind some of the donations that we receive at Auckland Libraries that adds intrinsic value and interest to our collections. Recently, I had great...
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i.e. crazy - Non Compos Mentis. A dark masterpiece revisited
This year for New Zealand Music month we’re focusing on our vinyl collection at Auckland Libraries’ Heritage Collections. This collection of NZ LPs and 45s (also known as 7-inch records) covers the...
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THE GORDONS S/T LP and TALL DWARFS Hello Cruel World
In this final blog for New Zealand Music Month we continue our celebration of the vinyl in our Heritage Collections, where you'll find LPs and 45s of every musical genre, from the 1950s to the present...
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‘Kia Kaha Puke: we’ve got this!’ Exhibitions reflecting on COVID-19 during...
When Denise Matene designed her COVID-19 photography exhibition, currently showing at Franklin Arts Centre in Pukekohe, she imagined there could be a part of the gallery for the community to add their...
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Lizzie Frost Rattray: journalist, suffragist and welfare worker
Journalism was a paid employment option for some tough and dedicated women in nineteenth-century Aotearoa. However, many women journalists had to remain freelancers. Lizzie Frost Rattray became one of...
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Digital access to historic Aotearoa arts journal
One of the country’s earliest arts journals, Art in New Zealand, will be digitised and made freely available to search on Papers Past. The seventy issues of Art in New Zealand (1928–1946) and its...
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Ecotones by Sonja Drake: an exhibition about Wairau Creek
Detail of Trickle Down, watercolour on Fabriano Watercolour paper 300gm, full work is 4200 x 1500mm.Sonja Drake’s art exhibition Ecotones opened at the Angela Morton Room at Takapuna Library on 7...
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The 1990 project – people, places, animals and cars
Back in 1989 and 1990 the Auckland Public Library commissioned two projects to mark the national sesquicentenary a.k.a. 150 years since 1840 when Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed and recognised as our...
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The archive of Jean Wishart
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections recently acquired the archives of Miss Jean Wishart (1920-2016) who for over thirty years edited the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly. Wishart was a career journalist...
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A ride on the Devonport horse Tramway
James D Richardson, "A woman and a girl beside the Devonport and Lake Takapuna Tramway tracks at Duders Beach, ca 1890". Auckland Libraries Heritage collections 4-3032.Spring 1886 heralded a...
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A unique sound of Italian elegance: L’Addio by Raffaello Squarise
For many years, Auckland Libraries has engaged with the music loving community by providing opportunities for musicians to perform at our Thursday Heritage Concerts series. At these concerts, our local...
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Topography, taonga and trailblazers
The cancellation of this year's Heritage Festival prompted a challenge from one of our hoamahi | colleagues to the other members of our Heritage teams:"I would like to celebrate the Auckland Heritage...
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Aprons in the archives
Aprons do not appear very often in photos from the past, except as part of formal uniforms. People tended to dress in their best clothes when they had their photograph taken, meaning that it is harder...
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Recreational music in 1840s Auckland
When Sarah Mathew, wife of the surveyor Felton Mathew, arrived on the shores of the Waitematā Harbour in 1840, it was to assist her husband in selecting a site for the capital of Aotearoa. Later that...
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The Camp gazette
The Camp Gazette has been digitised and made available through Kura Heritage Collections Online. Image: Camp Gazette, vol. 1, no. 1, 24 November 1913, p.1, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections...
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Waitematā Harbour crossings
Opened in 1959, the Auckland Harbour Bridge is a distinctive and crucial piece of infrastructure. The incident in September 2020 when a truck was tipped over by a strong wind gust, causing damage to...
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