Heritage et AL

Image: Auckland wharves from Point Britomart.  Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 5-2635. The Auckland Library Heritage Trust is a charitable trust that supports Auckland Libraries and Auckland Council to preserve, care for, add to, and promote Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections for the benefit of the people of Auckland. You can find out more about the work of the Trust via their website: www.alht.org.nz The Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections are one of New Zealand's key research destinations. They were originally established when Sir George Grey, 19th-century Governor of New Zealand and later Premier, gave his significant collection to the city of Auckland in the 1880s and has continued to grow since this time. The collections include photographs, maps, oral histories, manuscripts and archives, rare books and medieval manuscripts, ephemera and music; as well as Māori and Pacific heritage collections in all formats.  The Heritage Collections are held princi...

Ref: Happy staff at Hurley Bendon, Papatoetoe, 1964, photograph reproduced courtesy of Fairfax Media, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 00071. I was looking through the new publication Real modern : everyday New Zealand in the 1950s and 1960s  when I saw the tea towel. Memories came flooding back. My sister and I trapped in the small space of the dark décor in our 1970s kitchen. Doing the dishes. Who gets to dry? Who has to wash? Who decides? In 2013 our family moved into a house with no dishwasher. Great, I thought, now my teenagers can get to lead real lives, they will have to do the dishes. They will have to interact with their parents in a new and inventive way; they will have to talk to each other.  Ref: Souvenir tea towel of Mt Egmont (Mt Taranaki), c.1960, Maylin, Ireland, gift of Angela Lassig 2010. Image reproduced courtesy of Te Papa Press.  

Auckland celebrates its LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer) communities during the Pride Festival in February. Pride Festival has become an important part of the Auckland Libraries’ calendar, with a number of events such as pop-up libraries and storytimes programmed over the course of the month (including at the  same same but different festival ). However, as recently as the early 1980s not only was it legal to discriminate against a person on the basis of their (declared or suspected) sexual orientation, certain ‘homosexual behaviour’ was criminalised. At the time that Wellington Central MP Fran Wilde introduced the Homosexual Law Reform Bill in 1985, there was fierce debate both among politicians and throughout society about what the passing of such a bill might mean for New Zealand. In the Sir George Grey Special Collections reading room, Central City Library, the Homosexual Law Reform clippings scrapbook will be on display during February. ...

The Auckland Sun newspaper was established as a tabloid format morning paper in competition with the New Zealand Herald. It was launched on 10 August 1987, but closed less than a year later, the final issue being published on 8 July 1988. The Sun’s photograph collection was subsequently purchased by the newspaper’s two librarians who used it as the basis of an image bank and news service. The collection was then gifted to a former Sun reporter, who in turn donated it to Auckland Libraries in January 2015. It consists of 23 boxes of black & white and colour prints, and 4 large boxes of original negatives.  Because of the short life of the newspaper, the collection is essentially restricted to a very limited time period - 1987/8 – but nevertheless covers such important events as the 1987 election and the Labour government, the Stock market crash , and the demolition of His Majesty’s Theatre . It also includes this photograph of the late David Bowie arriving at Auckland ...

This blog post looks at the Abercrombie family’s outings during the 1930s and 1940s. The memories of this West Auckland family were documented by Ken Abercrombie through 4 photo albums of exquisite hand-coloured family snaps. These albums are held at the West Auckland Research Centre and you can view the first album online . A significant and attractive feature of the albums is that the majority of the prints have been hand-coloured and captioned by the photographer. Ref: KRA-PA-02-049-00, Ken Abercrombie, Album 2, West Auckland Research Centre Ken Abercrombie (b.1916) was a keen photographer, first becoming interested as a 16 year old boy when his parents gave him a camera – a ‘Balovo’, a German make. Ref: Ken Abercrombie's camera, early 1930s, West Auckland Research Centre At this time the Abercrombie family were living in Blockhouse Bay where Ken’s father, Roy had started a carrying business. The photo below shows his International truck. Ref: KRA-PA-02-031-04, ...

Fancy going on a world tour of documentary heritage collections? Then read on ... The UNESCO Memory of the World project was launched ten years ago. It aims to recognise & create awareness, provide access and ultimately help contribute towards the preservation of culturally significant documentary heritage from around the world. Cultural institutions are encouraged to nominate material for the internationally recognised register . A look through the register reveals a wide array of items: illuminated manuscripts, archival records from significant companies, newspaper collections, photograph & film archives and even woodblocks. A wide range of languages, cultures, individuals, groups and events of significant social and cultural change are represented.