150th Event Images

As all diligent librarians should, we have carefully recorded the anniversary events. Ross Becker has produced many notable images – some of which we offer in compilations for your delectation. Many thanks to Ross. There are photos of the library in lights, the book launch on 10 September, the staff reunion on 12 September, Parliament’s Open Day on 14 September, and the Victorian afternoon tea party on 19 September. These are but a small selection of the full range of images recording the memorable events associated with the 150th birthday of the Parliamentary Library.

 

 

Follow the link to see the 14 compilations: http://tiny.cc/GPBvY

 

 

 

 

 

Memories from London

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)

Lighting the Library

As part of the Library’s 150^th 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.

 

Open or Closed to browsers?

I wonder if someone can answer this one: Currently the only areas of the Library in which clients can freely browse are the Reference and Reading Rooms, but this wasn’t always the case. Exactly when and why did the other collections become closed access?

View from the top

I worked in Database Section in the early to mid 90s. We were stationed in Bowen House for most of that time. A highlight for our team was having a corner room with glass from floor to ceiling and uninterrupted views out to the snowcapped (in winter) Tararuas. Serials and Acquisitions may like to challenge this next assertion, but I think we were the social hub of the library. We didn’t have a formal social committee and definitely no funding, but we organised quite a few midwinter and Christmas functions – cramming everyone into the small 6th floor tearoom. I parked my bike in the basement of the Beehive and several times had early morning collisions with a severe pink leisure suit clad Ruth Richardson, fresh from her workout. (SW)

 

 

 

Ghost in the attic

An intrepid photographer took this shot. Who is this gentleman reposing in the old attic of the library and why is he there? Can anyone identify him and has anyone else seen him?

Places and Spaces

Remember shelving in Rooms 4, 5 and 5a or in Room 14 or 18a? What was kept down in the Lockwoods? Where was the Bills Table and what was the significance of Harriet St? Share with us your memories of some of the interesting places and spaces in the Library

 

Wahine storm

Have you heard about the time that the Assistant Chief Librarian stripped down to his underpants to save the collections?  On 10 April 1968, during the Wahine storm, Jim Traue and one other (un-named) person clambered onto the roof of the library to secure a tarpaulin over skylights which had been torn away. Any other memories of this time or other occasions when the collections were threatened by water?

Mysterious object 3

Where are these decorative features in the library?

Mysterious object 2

Where does this come from? Clue – it is at eye-level.