Heritage et AL

One of the recipients of  Auckland Library Heritage Trust 's  Researcher in Residence  award for 2014/2015 was Dr Zain Ali. Dr Ali focused his research on a  golden Quran  that  Henry Shaw  donated to the library and also some  manus cripts of poems in  Arabic . The aim of the Researcher in Residence scholarship is to assist with scholarly research and promotion of materials held in  Sir George Grey Special Collections . These aims were certainly achieved this year with some Arabic manuscripts being translated into English for the first time. The fruits of this research were presented in a talk at the library on the evening of 28 May this year. The video of the talk is now up online and you can watch the talk that Dr Ali and translator Hoda Khaled Fahmy gave below: Do have a look at Auckland Libraries YouTube Channel ; there is some great content there. Recently added videos include some of our family history talks through ...

You all are living under a cloud if you didn't hear that most amazing sporting news of the past month. Forget the Breakers, Team New Zealand and the Cricket World Cup… the real news was that The Bushwhackers , that great wrestling tag team of the 70s and 80s, were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame . This is huge. Mike Hosking even mentioned it on the telly during Seven Sharp. Here at the Central Library as part of our 1920s entertainment display, we've naturally included pro-wrestling because back in the day, like its boxing cousin , wrestling just exploded in popularity. By the thirties it had become a huge deal. Bouts filled halls all over the country – such as in the image below, taken in Masterton. Both promoters and wrestlers were out to make big money and the Dominion Wrestling Union was formed to promote the sport. Wrestlers – known as ‘matmen’ – came from all over the world looking for a match, and Monday nights at the Auckland Town Hall saw fans queuing early ...