Heritage et AL

Andrew Henry recording the podcast track, Photographer: Julian Lubin, 2026. Last year we were offered a special donation of Aotearoa New Zealand children’s books from Diane and Gary Hebley. Diane and Gary, writer and illustrator, wife and husband, have been involved for many years in reading, creating, teaching and writing about NZ books for children. In 1997 they received the New Zealand Children’s Literature Association’s Joint Award for Distinguished Services to Children’s Literature - now known as the Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award . Diane was awarded the first doctorate in Aotearoa on children’s literature, culminating in her book, The Power of Place: Landscape in NZ Children’s Fiction, 1970-1989 (1998) .  We discussed the collection in the podcast below:   Ngā Pātaka Kōrero - Auckland Libraries · NZ children's book collections with Andrew Henry Whilst the library only very selectively accepts offers of formed research collections there were many reasons wh...

Awekura is the name given to this blog and podcast series that showcases treasures within Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, presented by our library specialists.  Awekura is a kupu drawn from Māori weaponry, particularly the taiaha. It refers to the arero, the tongue of the taiaha, which is adorned with kura, red feathers. The term reflects both the physical beauty and their deeper spiritual and narrative significance.  The Heritage Maps collection is an essential resource for researchers, historians, and cartographic enthusiasts. Many of the 10,000 strong map collection items are available to explore on KURA under Heritage Maps . Because their formats vary widely, maps require careful storage; at Auckland Libraries, they are housed in cabinets, tubes, drawers, and specially designed folders. Over her years as Maps Librarian, Katrina helped catalogue the collection and played a key role in establishing the heritage maps presence on our digital platform, KURA .  In ...

Image:  'Walk under ladders’ Joan Armatrading on tour music poster, 1982-1983. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, Eph-Post00485.   On Friday 26 July 2024, I gave a talk to my colleagues at the Central City Library called 'Ephemera A-Z: an introduction'. I am relatively new to the Associate Curator Ephemera role and the staff talk was a way for me to explore parts of the collection I had not looked at before. This blog post is a version of my curator talk.  There were a few things I wanted to share in my talk. One was to show staff how ephemera is arranged, described, shelved and accessed. I also wanted to show some samples of ephemera which have been digitised and are accessible on Kura Heritage Collections Online . Most of the images of ephemera in my talk (and in this blog post) were carefully scanned or photographed by me for the purpose of the talk. So, those images are not available as digitised items on Kura. The talk was a chance for me to explore parts of th...