Heritage et AL

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...

I recently attended the Cartoons, Comics and Caricatures: Evidence or Ephemera? symposium held on the 3rd May 2014 at the University of Auckland. I spent a fascinating day listening to a diverse array of speakers drawn from the cartoon world (Alan Moir), academia (University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington) and libraries/archives (Alexander Turnbull Library (ATL) including the NZ Cartoon Archive). Ref: William Bricknell Gibbs, He's (H) all there at Rat catching, no location, c. 1880s, Auckland Libraries  Heritage Collections , 661-4   Alan Moir's talk gave a good overview of political cartoons both within and outside of newspapers. He noted that cartoons are valuable because they reflect opinions and ideas over the course of history. Good cartoons he says, are those which feature few words but are still incredibly powerful and use metaphor to good effect. It's worth noting that many cartoons don't make sense or work outside of their country of or...