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 ...

  Image: Reading in bed at Alton Ave. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1207-0455. Photographer: Ronald Clark. Summer is upon us and are librarians are delighted to share what pukapuka moved them this year. Fellow research librarian Rin has asked the Central City Librarians and Research Librarians what pukapuka blew them away in 2025. The list suggested below have a local and global connection to Aotearoa. Most importantly, they are all available at Auckland Libraries for all of us to read.  E maru ina tau! Here are our offerings: Image: Cyclists reading at Aotea Square. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 273-PAG047-07. Photographer: Stuart Page. Tony Fomison: Life of the Artist by Mark Forman A lovingly produced, long overdue biography of painter Tony Fomison. A pity it lacks reproductions of his paintings, with their doom chord atmospheres - check out the holy, deep tomb rumblings of 'Study of Holbein's 'Dead Christ' at the Auckland Art Gallery - but is sti...

Blame it on the rain by Hana Pera Aoake Carin Smeaton : Kia ora Hana, You’ve been a busy mama! I’ve just finished reading your gorgeous little pocket-sized pukapuka 'Blame It On the Rain' and now I’m reading your third (and latest) 'Some Helpful Models of Grief.' I love the philosophies that you weave through your writings with the humour and socio historical threads that we writers from this part of the world tend to shy away from. I love that you don’t sanitise things and I love reading books that embrace that edge. Could you please let us Aucklanders know where you’re from and your connections to Tāmaki Makaurau?  Some helpful models of grief by Hana Pera Aoake Hana Pera Aoake : He uri tenei nō Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Hinerangi, Waikato/Tainui, Te Arawa, me Poutini Ngāi Tahu. Kei te noho au ki Kawerau. I tipu ake au Ōtepoti me Te whenua Moemoea. Ko Aoake tōku whanau. Ko Miriama Jean taku Tamāhine. Ko Hana Pera Aoake toku ingoa.  Kia ora, my name is Hana. I'm from a...

Image: Books of Mana: 180 Māori authored books of significance He kaimahi from Auckland Libraries interviews Dr. Spencer Lilley on  Books of Mana Rin: E te rangatira, Tena koe. Thankyou so much Spencer for joining us here to chat. As you already probably know, I loved your classes at Te Herenga Waka. It was so cool learning about some of the amazing taonga here at Auckland Libraries to assist with whakapapa, tikanga Māori, Reo Rangatira and Waka histories. So it was great coming across your chapter while perusing through this beautiful new pukapuka  - Books of Mana (Otago University Press 2025). Can you please tell us how did you happen to contribute to this pukapuka?  Spencer: I was invited to participate by the editors about five years ago, after they had published the list of books.  They had received a grant from Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga to produce the book and sent out invitations to people who they thought would have something to contribute. Luckily, one of th...

Recently at Auckland Central Library Research Centre, we’ve been celebrating contemporary wāhine Māori writers of innovative fiction - creative fiction which shapeshifts in form and genre with the power and flow of atua wāhine. We want our Indigenous collections to be embraced in a space dedicated to and curated by the author. We began with Talia Marshall’s pukapuka Whaea Blue. This time we’re showcasing the magical and healing hit of auto composite fiction, Kōhine, by Colleen Maria Lenihan. Similar to Whaea Blue, Kōhine defies genre, time and space and takes you on an enlightened yet haunting journey into the spiritual realm and back, through narrative twists and turns of memoir, poetry, and interconnected short fiction.  The following kaupapa is an interview with Colleen on Kōhine :  Rin Smeaton: Kia ora to you Colleen. Our mutual hoa Talia suggested that I talk to you! First of all, I wanted you to know that my co-worker Ash read Kōhine when it first got published and cou...