Auckland Libraries Research

Auckland Libraries has a long history with music through its lending and Heritage Collections, as well as through events and public programming.

📖Read our latest blogpost here: https://bit.ly/4oMABd9

The blog coincides with the current atrium display on now at Level 2 of the Central City Library which celebrates the history of Auckland Libraries' music collection and its connections with the city's music communities.

Image: Stuart Page. Young man with a Walkman, Sandringham, 1989.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 273-PAG043-08.

It must have been so exciting for familiies in 1963 when Lynnmall, the first American-style shopping centre in New Zealand, opened. The site, a swampy paddock, was transformed into shops and a courtyard, a children’s play area and 500 free car parks. Retailers such as Farmers, Milne & Choyce, and Woolworths anchored the mall, along with a range of equally popular stores including Keans menswear, and the popular wool shop, Masco. The next development to follow suit was Southmall in Manurewa. A feature of both malls was the focus on entertainment, from baby and beauty contests, to musical performances. In 1970, West Auckland fans of local pop stars Shane and The Chicks were treated to a visit from the celebrities, who took time to autograph posters for their fans at Lynmall.
An outdoor garden area at LynnMall, New Lynn, 1963
Photographer: National Publicity Studios
Image reference:; Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 895-A74687

📑🗃️Manuscript Mondays No. 4

Few politicians hold quite the reputation as John Alfred Alexander Lee. A First World War veteran who lost an arm at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, Lee entered politics in 1922 as a member of the first Labour government for Auckland East (later Grey Lynn). Over the next twenty years, he became notorious for standing his ground against his party and anyone else, eventually resulting in his expulsion from the Labour Party in 1940 and the establishment of his own Democratic Labour Party that same year. Even after he left politics, he remained an active and popular figure until his death in 1982.

Lee established a strong relationship with Auckland City Libraries throughout the 1960s and 1970s, making several large donations of books and manuscript and bequeathing the remainder upon his death. Kura Heritage Collections Online has recently added nearly 1,500 digitised records of his letters and telegrams, the majority of which were addressed to his wife, Mollie, who was a leading member of the Auckland branch of the Labour Party in the 1930s. They include insider information on the workings of Parliament and senior Labour Party leadership, as well as his personal thoughts about bills and fellow politicians. Most of the letters to Mollie can be found here: https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/search/searchterm/NZMS-0541*.

Other letters in the collection are from members of the public who tuned into Lee’s 2ZB radio broadcasts and shared their own stories. The broadcasts focused on the various ‘swagger men’ who once roamed the South Island at the turn of the century. Lee himself had briefly been a swagger man in his youth, before the war set him on his political path. The letters include stories, poems, a few illustrations and photographs, and run-ins with some of the more notorious men, such as The Shiner, Barney Winter, and John Burke O’Brien. You can view all the swagger men letters here: https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/search/searchterm/NZMS-0480*. A full listing of the collection can be found here: https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/search/searchterm/LEE-0000.

Interested in exploring the John A. Lee collection or other manuscript collections held by Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections? You can arrange a viewing here: https://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/Pages/research-booking.aspx.

Image: Telegram from John to Mollie Lee, 27 August 1943. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZMS-0541-911.

Fancy yourself a couple of free events for a midday pick me up ? We have two events for you on Thursday 18 June in the Whare Wananga, Level 2, Central City Library 📍 Book your spots in the links below:

Image 1. Notes on Tāmaki: WAIWHAI, 12:10pm - 1pm. https://bit.ly/442R8ju
A live music performance with WAIWHAI. Descendant of Te Parawhau, Te Uriroroi and Ngāti Mahuta, founder of Noa Records.

Image 2. Piringatahi: Voices of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. 2pm - 3pm. https://bit.ly/4uxs7bh Tune into a diversity of voices drawn from the oral history and sound archives held in Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

In the 1970s and 80s, Space Invaders were to some the scourge of Western civilisation. Not only was there a fear of technology but spacie parlours (likened to massage and tattoo parlours for seediness), were held responsible for theft, kids skipping school, and violence. It was the game itself most likely to be the one that suffered, though, when a vandalised screen might also mean a broken tube inside. Japanese company, Taito, created the initial Space Invader game, and battling enemy fighters, spaceships and bombs was revolutionary. As their popularity grew, so did the money that could be made off them. Local councils passed by laws for their operation. Mt Albert Borough, for example, said that any more than four amusement machines required a licence. They could be a good sideline to a dairy or fish and chip shop, who only needed a supply of 20c coins to reap a percentage of the income, in partnership with the operator who was responsible for everything else. Besides the local dairy, there were the arcades themselves. In the 1980s Auckland CBD, there was Space World in the Regent Theatre complex, Wizards on Commerce Street (handy to the bus terminal if you had time to spare,) and SpaceInvaderland in Wellesley Street; just up from the Civic, humming with young people and at the end of the day, even businessmen.
Photographer: Unknown.
Playing spacies, Ōtāhuhu, 1981.
Image reference: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 00411

In case you missed it ! 🔊 We recently held a fantastic event for our Encore! Exhibition called Opening Act. Part of this day we had a Tāmaki Untold talk called "Change and Impact: The Future of Tāmaki Music Venues" hosted by bFM breakfast host Rosetta Stone in conversation with Taylor MacGregor, Savina Fountain, MP Chlöe Swarbrick. Check out the full recording below on our soundcloud ❤:
https://on.soundcloud.com/rdT1cKFVMw6FuUQPdu

Saturday morning fitness, 100 years ago ...

"Activities of the Young Men's Christian Association in Auckland: developing the physical side. One of the Saturday morning classes being instructed by the physical director, Mr. E. J. Wilson, on the roof of the Y.M.C.A. building in Wellesley Street."

Published in the supplement to the Auckland Weekly News, 3 June 1926, p.50
https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/photos/id/249296/rec/53

📑🗃️Manuscript Mondays No. 3
In 1992, Maurice Gee described a fictionalised journey by steam train from Henderson to Auckland City in his book ‘Going West’. A few years later, at the Under Silkwood bookshop in Parnell, the idea for a literary and cultural festival emerged from a conversation between Murray Gray and Naomi McCleary. With the support of Waitakere City Mayor Bob Harvey and Library Manager Adrian Birkbeck, the Going West Festival launched in 1996 as Auckland’s first literary festival.

In the years since, the Going West Festival grew from strength to strength. It evolved into a vibrant annual festival held in Titirangi, hosting a diverse range of literary figures and artists, with events, including a steam train journey, creating a dynamic platform for storytelling, intellectual discourse, and cultural exchange. A who’s who of New Zealand writers, musicians, and artists graced the stage and shared their work. The festival’s mission was to support, celebrate, and enable the sharing of writing, performance, and cultural commentary from Aotearoa and the Pacific.

The Going West Trust partnered with Waitakere City Libraries in 2003 to record, preserve, and promote the archives of the Going West Books & Writers Festival. This responsibility passed to Auckland Council Libraries in 2010 and has been maintained and nurtured in the years since. The archive includes audio recordings of every reading and discussion since the 1996 festival, as well as video recordings, photographs, programmes, brochures, posters, business records, correspondence, and press clippings related to the festival and the activities of the trust.

30 years later, Going West remains strong even as it adapts to a changing literary environment. The trust’s archive page highlights its relationship with Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections and features a blog post and podcast by James Littlewood, who helped make this collection more accessible to the public. The page can be accessed here: https://www.goingwestfest.co.nz/archives.

Interested in exploring the Going West Trust collection or other manuscript collections held by Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections? You can arrange a viewing here: https://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/Pages/research-booking.aspx.

Image: Going West Literary Festival event announcement flyer, July 1996. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZMS-2475-S8-B1-1.

In 1960, when this photo was taken, the registry office for marriages was in Courtyard Lane, across the road from the old Magistrate's Court. It had moved there in 1949, and many a wedding photo had been taken just up the road on the steps at Albert Park. A quarter of all Auckland marriages were Registry ones at the time, but the location by 1960 had become "disgraceful" and "cheerless." Not only for the happy couple either: it was also where mothers would navigate a narrow flight of stairs to reach the office to register their newborns. In 1965, the Registry located to the Law Court in High Street, where there were more romantic surroundings including wall to wall carpet, a chandelier and stained glass window. In 1970, with around 1300 marriages taking place at the Registry annually, it was moved again, this time to O'Connell Street, and the High Street floor was given over to the use of the coroner.
Rykenberg Collection
Registry office wedding, Courthouse Lane, 1960
Image reference: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1269-K0209-27

📖📍Asked and Answered #17

Storytelling is something we all do, but in te ao Māori, Pūrākau and Pakiwaitara are something really special. They're not just stories. They're vessels of knowledge, history, and whakapapa that have been carefully carried across generations.

We had a researcher come in recently looking for something quite specific: adult nonfiction books on Pūrākau, written in te reo Māori. And if possible, Pūrākau from Taranaki. We love a request like this!

Pūrākau are traditional Māori narratives, the big stories that explain the world. The origins of land and sea, the relationships between people and atua, the journeys of ancestors. They hold mātauranga Māori in a way that no textbook could. Pakiwaitara sit alongside them as imaginative, creative storytelling, still deeply rooted in a Māori worldview, but with a little more room to wander.

Taranaki has some of the most powerful Pūrākau in all of Aotearoa. The story of Taranaki maunga alone; love, rivalry, heartbreak, and a long journey across the landscape is the kind of tale that stays with you. The iwi of that rohe have long been kaitiaki of an extraordinary storytelling tradition, and it's one that absolutely deserves to be explored.

Me mihi ka tika ki te Kāhui mounga, kāhui wairua, kāhui poropiti, nā rātou ēnei kōrero i toha ki te iwi.

Our Pūrākau and Pakiwaitara collections here at Research Central bring together books and materials written in te reo Māori, so these stories can be read and appreciated exactly as they were meant to be. Whether you're a researcher, a reo learner, or just someone who loves a great story there's something here for you.

https://discover.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/search/card?id=3081d557-8b4f-5e2b-b1c4-09fbf7d7d629&entityType=FormatGroup