Auckland Libraries Research

Auckland Libraries Research Discover collections and services from Auckland Libraries' Research and Heritage Collections.

Read our blog: https://heritageetal.blogspot.com/
For queries: https://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/en/heritage-and-research/research-services.html The Auckland Research Centres are based at four locations around Auckland and provide local history, family history and whakapapa research support. Our teams at Central, North, West and South are able to provide expert knowledge and resources to help

you on your research journey. Sir George Grey Special Collections, based at the Central Library, is one of New Zealand's major heritage collections. This valuable resource is available to view by the public without appointment. Come in and talk to us about your research needs!


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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 W...
12/06/2026

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 tech...
11/06/2026

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...
10/06/2026

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 ...
08/06/2026

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. 3In 1992, Maurice Gee described a fictionalised journey by steam train from Henderson to Auckl...
08/06/2026

📑🗃️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 ol...
04/06/2026

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 #17Storytelling is something we all do, but in te ao Māori, Pūrākau and Pakiwaitara are something ...
02/06/2026

📖📍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

Remember December 1984? DD Smash, Herbs, and the Mockers were giving a free concert at Aotea Square to mark the end of t...
28/05/2026

Remember December 1984? DD Smash, Herbs, and the Mockers were giving a free concert at Aotea Square to mark the end of the school year. It was organised by TripleM 89FM radio as "Thank God It's Over." Ten thousand gathered for the event, which ended up going down in music history as the Queen Street Riot. It happened soon after DD Smash took the stage, with stores looted, windows smashed, and police coming under scrutiny for their methods of dealing with it. Dave Dobbyn was charged with behaviour likely to cause violence against people or property but the charges were dismissed against him after a three day trial. Ultimately, a Commission of Inquiry concluded there were multiple contributing factors including unemployment and the rift between police and youth exacerbated by the Springbok tour a few years earlier. Read more about this event on our Heritage et Al blog.
https://heritageetal.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-1984-queen-street-riot.html

DD Smash concert, Aotea Square, 1984
Photographer: Bruce Jarvis
Image reference: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1704-3290-04

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