Heritage et AL

The heritage music collections at Auckland Libraries include a range of material, including cassettes, LPs, CDs, music scores and manuscript sheet music. The music collections cover a large range of genres and are continually expanding. Ref: Items from Sir George Grey Special Collections music collections, clockwise from top left:  Shocking Pinks (self-titled) CD, Ardijah 'Take a chance' CD, New Zealand poets read their work LP, Freebase 'Raw: live at Cause Celebre' cassette Auckland Libraries' music collections are of historic interest and relate to the development of New Zealand music. In November last year, the original manuscripts of  God Defend New Zealand ,  held at Sir George Grey Special Collections, received national recognition with inscription on the UNESCO Memory of the World New Zealand register of documentary heritage . Older forms of media, sometimes out-dated, hard to track down, unpopular or difficult to purchase, are also part of the ...

The church forms an important part of the life of many Pasifika communities. Over recent decades the streetscapes in many parts of South Auckland have been enhanced by the addition of large new churches serving Pacific Island congregations. Some of these churches make striking architectural statements. For instance, in the Ormiston Road Tongan Methodist Church, architect George Moala used both traditional Tongan forms and traditional materials such as coconut fibre. Expert Tongan craftsmen were brought in to help with the work. The church was opened in June 1990. Ref: Footprints 03324, interior, Tongan Methodist Church, Otara, 1990, photograph reproduced by permission of Fairfax Media, South Auckland Research Centre Almost all of the mainstream and many of the smaller denominations are represented by thriving Pacific Island congregations. Some South Auckland churches hold their Sunday services in 3 or 4 different languages. Ref: Footprints 03313, New home for church, Otara,...

Pasifika at Auckland Libraries is well underway and there is lots you can take part in . To get you in the mood, listen to the Pacific Islands music playlist  that has been specially created for this festival. You can also check out the  Pacific resources  at Auckland Libraries. This includes a range of heritage collections: online resources, Pacific Island family history resources (Central Auckland Research Centre), Pacific newspapers (South Auckland Research Centre) and reference materials at the research centres . There are also significant collections in the Sir George Grey Special Collections, including a tapa cloth book collected during Cooks' three voyages to the southern hemisphere. This has now been digitised and can be accessed online and you can read about the project to track down the other Cook tapa cloth books known to exist. To further celebrate and honour the contribution that Pacific Islands communities make to the cultural mix of peoples...

A new exhibition from the Sir George Grey Special Collections entitled 'The Romantics: Jane Austen meets Frankenstein' has recently opened at the Central Library (Level 2) and runs until 22 June. The exhibition of rare books and manuscripts from late 18th to early 19th century covers a time when there was a revolutionary mood in art and literature, and a new emphasis on the imagination and the emotions. Jane Austen and Mary Shelley are some of the well known authors included. Find out more . Ref: an illustration from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by Lynd Ward Another author from this time, although he is not included in the exhibition is Robert Southey (1774-1843). He was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843. "The Story of the Three Bears" (sometimes known as "The Three Bears", "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" or, simply, "G...

On 20 October 1976 Hillary College, Otara - now Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate - hosted the first Auckland Secondary Schools’ Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival. Just 6 groups and 40 performers from 4 schools took part (Aorere College, Mangere College, Seddon High School and Hillary College itself). The annual event was then held at a variety of schools. From 1996 it found a permanent home at the Manukau Sports Bowl in Clover Park. This offered the space to establish stage areas for different cultures: Māori, Cook Island, Niue, Samoa, Tonga. By this time a ‘Diversity’ stage for other cultures had also been added. The 25th Festival held at the Sports Bowl in March 2001 involved 13,000 performers and 162 groups from 52 schools. The festival is gathering strength even today. This year’s festival, which is now known in short as the ASB Polyfest , attracted 223 groups from 62 schools. See below for a small selection of images taken at various festivals over the years  (...

Today marks the start of the Pasifika festival. 'My pride, my treasure, my Samoa / O lo'u mitamitaga, o a'u measina, o lau Samoa' is the title of the new  collection of Samoan photos on Historypin . This collection covers both Samoa and American Samoa and was created from the heritage collections at Auckland Libraries. The images are mainly from the late 19th and early 20th century with a selection from the late 1980s and 1990s giving a more contemporary focus. Ref: AWNS-18980909-2-1, bush scene in Apia, 1898, Sir George Grey Special Collectio These photos capture the timeless essence of what is most important to Samoa; her land and her people and are a good way to mark the start of the Pasifika Festival. They bring together key places and events in Samoa and NZ - from the sliding rocks of Papasea, to the procession of Malietoa’s men on Coronation Day in the late 1800s, to the Bairds Intermediate Samoan group performance at the Otara Festival. To access the ...

The Housing NZ flats at 115-139 Grey Avenue (known as the Upper Greys Ave flats) are going to undergo a much needed makeover. The land behind the flats, which is currently being used as a car park, will  be sold off. The other state housing flats nearby at 95-113 Grey Ave (known as the Lower Greys Ave Flats) were upgraded 5 years ago and will also remain in state hands.   Ref: Greys Ave showing the two Housing NZ flats, Auckland Council GIS Viewer, March 2014 Prior to the building of both of these blocks of flats, the area around Greys Avenue or Grey Street as it was known them, was home to a Chinese community. It was regarded by some (including the government) as a ‘slum' and  in 1941, the Labour government, with financial backing from the council, started to clear the area, which  made way for the building of both sets of flats. Ref: 580-2234, architectural model of the multi-storey state flats in Greys Ave 1956-1957, Sir George Grey Special Collections ...