Heritage et AL

The map below is one of many beautiful and intricate hand-coloured illustrations and maps in Lodovico Guicciardini's book  on the Low Countries.  Sir George Grey Special Collection 's copy is a French edition published in Antwerp in 1567. It was donated to the library by Henry Shaw. The map is of Bolduch ('s-Hertogenbosch or the Duke's Forest) in the southern Netherlands. Iain Sharp notes in  Real Gold  that Guicciardini's book was one of the best sellers of the sixteenth century. Image ref: Map from: Lodovico Guicciardini.  Description de tovt le Païs-Bas, avtrement dict la Germanie inferievre, ov, Basse-Allemaigne. Antwerp: Guillaume Silvius, 1567. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-C1964. The two main methods for printing maps in the sixteenth century were relief (usually woodcut) and intaglio (copper engraving or etching). The map pictured is a copperplate engraving. The intaglio technique involves engraving l...

Popular throughout Europe from the late thirteenth to the sixteenth century Books of Hours were prayer books intended for devout everyday folk who wanted to follow the Church’s programme of daily devotions.  They always included a series of prayers to the Virgin Mary but also varied in the choice of other saints recognized and in the number, size and quality of illustrations. These books could either come readymade or be specially tailored to a person’s own circumstances and interests. Ref: Catholic Church, Rossdhu Book of Hours, 1475-1500, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-C1906.

Sometimes when a customer has navigated their way up two flights of escalators and come across the  Sir George Grey Special Collections exhibition room, they might decide to go through another set of glass doors to the reading room for a look around. At this point, they might scan recent acquisitions displayed in a case or walk around the edges of the room looking at the books-about-rare-books on the shelves. Next the person at the reading room desk might walk over and say 'hello' and tell them a bit about the collection. And thankfully, there is always the book  Real Gold on hand: making the task of briefly outlining the wonderful, varied and expanding Sir George Grey Special Collections much easier. Ref: Iain Sharp, Real gold: treasures of Auckland City Libraries, Auckland: AUP, 2007. When Real Gold was published in 2007 there was a physical exhibition to coincide with the book launch. In addition, there is an online version of this exhibition which gives de...

At the Dunedin Public Libraries’ Reed Gallery, there is currently an exhibition showcasing the letters and manuscripts collected by the Dunedin publisher, Alfred Hamish Reed (1875-1975) over a sixty year period. Our Will and Pleasure: Royal Autographs, Letters & Memorabilia of the British Monarchy covers the seventeenth century through to the early twentieth century and includes items written or signed by members of the royal houses of Great Britain from the House of Stuart to the current House of Windsor. The exhibition is timed to coincide with the wider events marking the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. It is also available as a rich online exhibition detailing the individual case items, along with excerpts and background information and high resolution zoomable scans.

If you were intrigued by the image of the tapa cloth book included two posts ago, then read on … Housed in the Sir George Grey Special Collections at Auckland Central Library is one of thirty surviving, individually distinct copies of ‘A catalogue of the different specimens of cloth collected in the three voyages of Captain Cook’.  London: Printed for Alexander Shaw, 1787. Ref: 7-C1922, Sir George Grey Special Collections For more information, check out Real Gold: treasures of Auckland City Libraries . Other copies can be found at the Alexander Turnbull Library and the British Museum .