On Sunday 28th of September the Parliamentary Historian, Dr John E. Martin was interviewed by Lynn Freeman about the history of Parliamentary Library for the Arts on Sunday programme. The interview takes the listener on a tour of parts of the building with a commentary on its history, building, notable events, collection and treasures.
The audio is available for download on the Arts on Sunday section of the Radio New Zealand website beginning at 14.48 and running for just over 9 minutes.
The Parliamentary Library held a bake-off competition morning tea on 22 September as the final event in the celebrations commemorating the 150 years of the library. This was organised by the Social Committee. Staff entered a wide range of cakes and other goodies and the three judges found it extremely difficult to decide on a winner. Eventually the competition was decided on the toss of a coin – a beautifully presented lemon cake just prevailed over a tasty chocolate and cream cheese concoction. Only then did it emerge that one of the judges herself had contributed the winning cake!! No wonder she was rather silent during the deliberations! The prize was a copy of Parliament’s Library – 150 Years. A monstrous chocolate cake in the shape of 150 years got a special commendation for imagination. To celebrate the occasion a cake illustrated with photos of the library building by day and lit up at night was adorned with candles – and we can say that with the blowing out of the candles and the singing of ‘Happy Birthday’ the 150th anniversary was brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
Working at the Parliamentary Library was very special, due to both the physical building we moved around in and the people we worked for and with. The Reference Room team was the best – lively & social. All in all it was a great place to be practicing librarianship in the 1980s.
Spending one afternoon a week in isolation, sequestered in the small Clippings Room (to the left of the main entrance), was not my favourite duty.
Nor was serving time in the Media Room (on the right, off the long hall-way down to the tea-area), always holding my breath first thing in the morning hoping I had timed the 24 hr clock correctly and that all the recordings had been made in their entirety without the video or cassette tapes running out.
Manipulating the huge, wooden spined newspaper folders onto the impossibly small photocopying machine was frustrating and seldom successful.
Morning tea from ‘Art Craft’, a bakery across the road, was eaten in a leaky, glass-roofed corridor on old sofas with compromised suspension.
Some of the simpler things I appreciate now after having lived in London for 10 years – free parking in the angle car parks right outside the front entrance to the library and the sash windows we could open for immediate fresh air.
Wendy (1986-87)
Retired Parliamentary Librarian Hillas MacLean unveils a painting by Peter McIntyre purchased to commemorate the anniversary
On Friday 12th of September current and former Parliamentary Library staff gathered in the Library to celebrate 150 years of library service and renew many friendships. Former staff had travelled from Australia, Auckland, Palmerston North and Christchurch especially for the event. Some of the former staff had worked in the library as early as the 1950s and many took the opportunity to visit old and new areas of the building. The formalities included an item by the Library choir, unveiling a painting and speeches from former Parliamentary Librarians and the Parliamentary Historian. A highlight of the evening was the group photographs impressively marshalled by one of the current staff members. The 150th project group would like to thank everyone involved in this memorable occasion.
Past and present staff mingle
Dearest former colleagues and all others present on this very special occasion.
I wish you all a wonderful time celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Parliamentary Library.
Would dearly love to be there amongst you. In thought I am and am sure all the other colleagues that could not be present, wherever they may find themselves on the globe, will be there in thought as well. So it is going to be a global happening! Warmest regards, Johan.
Congratulations to John and the Library team on this special day – from a sunny Eastern Cape VSA assignment, carrying the Library research experience far and wide! Sandra.
Hope you all have a great weekend. I would have loved to be there – so many names I recognise, both from WGA and library school. For those wondering if they recognise my name – I was a library assistant in cataloguing in 1979 (hello Tholla and Jan!) then worked in acquisitions/serials in 1980 (greetings to Ruth, Cheryl, Lynn and Roger) before library school in 81. Lorna
Hi colleagues of 5 years ago, I hope you have a really good party.
I recall the good times in social policy, in between work the Maori singing, a soccer team, laser war game evening, naked protests against GE, a tractor going up the steps, the Lord of the Rings premiere, getting lost in the basement but never squashed by a moving stack. Mark.
My very best wishes for the occasion. I have followed the blog with interest and was so pleased to see so many familiar names in the list of attendees. I am so sorry not to be there myself. Gerald.
Congratulations and best wishes to all for the 150th. If you are in Brisbane come and visit. Marisa.
To all my work mates from WGA, many of whom are still good friends several decades later, have a wonderful weekend re-united. Wendy.
From left: Moira Fraser (Parliamentary Librarian), Hillas MacLean (retired Parliamentary Librarian), Ian Matheson (retired Parliamentary Librarian), and John Martin
On the 10th of September the Speaker Hon Margaret Wilson launched a book on the history of the Parliamentary Library called Parliament’s Library – 150 years by Dr John E. Martin. The function was held in Parliament’s Grand Hall and was attended by a large number of people. The text of the Speaker’s speech is available on the Parliament website
As part of the Library’s 150th celebrations the front of the Parliamentary Library building is being lit up with many hundreds of lights. The library was lit up in a similar manner in September 2007 in a re-creation of the lighting effect of one hundred years earlier when New Zealand first celebrated Dominion Day. This year more lights have been placed on the upper roof line and the exterior washed in coloured lights. To see photos of the building in 2007 and 2008 go to the flickr link on this site.
Over the months leading up to the 150th anniversary of the Parliamentary Library a committee led by Ruth Graham has planned the events. We thought it was time that this committee was put on the record. From left to right: Mike Keane, Paul Bellamy, Bill Lake, John Martin, Ruth Graham, Jill Taylor, Sarah Kreig, Kate Peacocke, Felicity Rashbrooke, Carolynne Stormer, Katherine Close (Project Sponsor) and Ellen Fitzsimons.
Love in the library. Yes, it does happen. The Parliamentary Library 150th project team are aware of six married couples that have meet at the Library. There have even been reports of match making by rostering people together and stolen moments in the newspaper basement. Of course we would never name names but wish you all continuing happiness.
Over the years many well-known members of the public have used the Parliamentary Library. One of these was the young Katherine Mansfield not that long after women gained access in their own right to the library. She returned from England to Wellington in December 1906, lined her own room in the house in Fitzherbert Terrace with books, and immediately got a reader’s ticket as a result of her father’s friendship with Chief Librarian Charles Wilson. In following months and until July 1908 when she left New Zealand again she regularly spent the afternoon there. The library became a welcome retreat from what she regarded as the crass colonial life of Wellington.
Mansfield had her own corner, and as well as reading extensively she wrote there. ‘I have been spending days at the Library reading and writing a novel – entitled The Youth of Rewa – it is very much in embryo just at present’. She read ‘the lives of innumerable artists and poets’, a great deal of poetry such as Browning and Yeats, the writings of dramatists such as Ibsen and Shaw, and of literary critics. Her favourite authors were ‘Morris and Meredith, Ruskin and Shaw, Whitman and Carpenter, D’Annunzio and the Brontёs’along with a range of Russian writers. A surviving library daybook of the time records that she took out Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Shaw’s Plays.
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