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.

 

Your 150th Committee

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Romance

Love in the library. Yes, it does happen. The Parliamentary Library 150^th 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.

Katherine Mansfield and the library

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.

Memories from the 1960s

I’ve remembered a few people and incidents about MPs and staff from my time at WGA in 1964:

* Sir Leslie Munro discovered by the reference staff fast asleep in the members’ writing room after the House had a couple of late night sittings.

* Warren Freer shouting down the corridor to Jim Wilson the Chief Librarian, ‘Have you got Fanny Hill?” (Note that the library used to receive banned books awaiting decisions of the Indecent Publications Tribunal).

* Roy Jack (later Sir Roy, Speaker of the House) playing the violin at a drinks session in his room. He was known by some as Jack and his Fiddle.   

* A staff member that was fond of eating weird tropical fruit at staff morning tea. There were a number of single women including Virginia who was known for having the best legs in Parliament buildings.

*We were sometimes invited for drinks in member’s rooms. One who was friendly was Doug Carter, member for a Waikato seat. In that era of 6 o’clock closing it was quite fun going to drink Bellamy’s sherry after hours, occasionally interrupted when the division bells rang.  

That’s all.

Julia Millen

Strange beginnings and memorable endings

 

I began working at the General Assembly Library in early 1980. On my second day I was informed there was to be a stop work meeting for the Clerical Workers Union that afternoon. With no-one left to advise me what to do I tagged along to St Andrews on the Terrace. It was a very hot summer afternoon, completely crowded and with standing room only. At the end of the meeting we were told not to go back to work, so we didn’t. Those were the days – some would say.

Most memorable farewell was for the head of the Profile service. In jest someone suggested a singing telegram as they were very popular at the time. The idea took on a life of its own. The highlight of the farewell was the arrival of two larger size women in a very small pink car. The ‘telegram’ (based on information supplied by Library staff) was taken in good heart by the recipient – thank goodness!

 

Memories from the 1950s

The heavy canvas-bound accession volumes

 

I joined the staff at the beginning of 1953 as a 17year-old straight from College. I was ‘the Accessioner’ in the Catalogue Department which was upstairs in the corner room facing Hill Street.  I recorded all books in huge and very heavy ledger books which was fine for the new books but when I had to alter information on books in earlier volumes it was difficult to lift them down from the shelf.  Soon after I started I had to accession The Kinsey Report. I remember being constantly watched by the chief cataloguer to make sure I didn’t read anything that would harm my supposed innocence!  I  progressed to typing catalogue cards and of course filing them in the catalogue downstairs.  Eventually I went downstairs and did all the ordering of new books.

My six years working in the General Assembly Library were very happy ones.

 

My best wishes

Margaret Beauchamp (Mead)

 

Calling former WGA staff

The plans for the 150^th celebrations are progressing. Nearly 140 former staff have registered with the Library to receive information about the activities. If you are a former staff member and want to join us please contact the Library 150^th project group. Go to the about page on the blog to find the email contact address.

Zappo weaves his magic

The Library Social Committee recently organised a magical family night with Zappo the magician. Staff and their families were thrilled and amazed as a space robot materialised, a green alien visited, and a magical wand achieved the unimaginable. Highlights included a staff member being fitted with a space helmet that had an amazing and unbelievable result, and a friendly space bunny letting everyone pat it.

Issues and Returns

Nedra Shand (left) assists MP Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan at the issues desk

 

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century the Library used handwritten Day Books, Member’s Ledgers and Recess Ledgers to record book issues. Today circulation is controlled through a computer system. Between these two methods existed the system described by Jenny - a staff member in the 1960s.

 

 

 

 

‘My last position in the Library was as Issues Librarian in the main lobby downstairs. This was a great spot to observe all the comings and goings and you came to recognise many MP’s and their wives and the staff from their offices. Staff from other areas in the buildings also used the library as did ‘Recess Privilege’ holders when Parliament was not in session. We had quite a large fiction collection as well as biography and travel etc. It is really funny thinking back to the Issues system of the time. We noted items on large cards for MP’s and had ‘pockets’ for everyone else. We had a system of different coloured clips which were used week and week about and this was how we identified any overdue items. Parliament always went into a long summer recess and I used to send out baskets of books to the MP’s and their wives for holiday reading. You soon got to know the many tastes they had in reading …one particular wife was addicted to hospital romances.’