Heritage et AL

Image:  The Don Smith Symposium panel – Mark Houlahan, Jack Ross and Shef Rogers (seated) with panel chair Sophie Tomlinson. Emeritus Professor Don Smith (1934-2023) and his wife Jill first visited the library in 2018 to assess the Heritage Collections holdings and the synergy of the early modern titles in Don’s working library. Don had taught English literature at the University of Auckland and was seeking a suitable research library in Auckland for the substantial library he had built during his career in the United Kingdom, North America and New Zealand.  Don was born and educated in Auckland, at Auckland Grammar School and the University of Auckland, before his post-graduate study at Merton College Oxford. His doctoral thesis ‘ An edition of The rehearsal transpos’d by Andrew Marvell, with introduction and commentary ’ (1963) is now represented in the Heritage Collections as a monograph published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford (1971) alongside his early pre-1801 editions ...

Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections gained an important collection in 2024 with the gift of 183 titles collected by the late Professor Emeritus Donal Ian Brice Smith (Don). The collection of early modern books published before 1801 comprises several hundred volumes. The collection is now housed in archival boxes, each with a label which features Don’s signature, to show the provenance from the library of Professor Smith. Image: Don’s signature on the fly leaf of ‘An account of popery and arbitrary government in England’ 1677 MARV, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections. Every title brings new possibilities. To honour this significant collection Auckland Libraries has invited academics from across the country to talk about books in this collection.  Rare Book Librarians Jane Wild and Renee Orr have enjoyed looking at the collection and note that books of this age all have stories to tell in terms of their ownership (provenance) and condition. Many have annotations from for...