Sleeping porches were a fashionable feature of homes designed at the turn of the 20th century. See an example in a Titirangi ‘summer cottage’ in the final Special Collections Twenty at 20 series story. Read more…

Intriguing item no. 19 is a 1965 exhibition catalogue that contextualises an Auckland artist’s work, provides a snapshot of the gallery scene and wonderfully evokes the era. Read more. Read more…

Paul Beadle is probably best known as an influential sculptor, artist and first Dean of the Elam School of Fine Art. What is less well known is that he served with the Royal Navy as a submariner and navy artist. Dive deeper in the latest Twenty at 20 story. Read more…

This correspondence register was made in Sydney, used in Port Vila, stored in Suva and shipped around the world twice before coming to Special Collections with the Western Pacific Archives in 2002. Somewhere on its travels it was eaten by beetle larvae. Discover more about its journey in the latest Special Collections Twenty at 20 story. Read more…

To mark this year’s 20th anniversary of Special Collections, the curators have selected some intriguing items for the Twenty at 20 series. No 15 examines an idyllic watercolour of a large country house at Turakina.Read more…

A Special Collections copy of the report on the 1939 Young Māori Conference held at Auckland University College differs from the standard version. Story number 14 in the Twenty at 20 series explains why.Read more…

To mark this year’s 20th anniversary of Special Collections, the curators have selected some intriguing items for the Twenty at 20 series. Here is number 13. Written in lea faka-Tonga This 1912 letter announcing the baptism of Princess Elisiva FusipalaRead more…

To mark this year’s 20th anniversary of Special Collections, the curators share item number twelve, our favourite piece of ephemera: a 1948 Ashes football test match souvenir programme. Read more…

What was this ingenious 17th century revolving book diagram used for? Read the latest Special Collections Twenty at 20 story to find out.Read more…

To mark this year’s 20th anniversary of Special Collections, the curators share item number nine, geographer Kenneth Cumberland’s Swanndri jacket which he wore on the 1980s television series Landmarks.Read more…

Notable Auckland architect Daniel B. Patterson’s letter book provides insights into his clients, contractors and collaborators. Read more in the eighth story in the Twenty at 20 series. Read more…

Many of the archival collections in the care of Special Collections have been part of Te Tumu Herenga | Libraries and Learning Services for much longer than two decades. Among these is the William Steadman Aldis papers, gifted to the Library in 1940 by his youngest daughter Amy Letitia Aldis.Read more…

The sixth story in the Twenty at 20 series is an election sweetener. A Labour-red lollipop was handed out to students in the Quad in 2002 and is the only confectionary item in Special Collections. Read more…

Tapa notebook poetry project: ‘Issa gift(s) that keeps on giving’. The fifth story in the Twenty at 20 series explores spoken word poet, Zechariah Soakai’s ‘tapa notebook’. The notebook is inspired by other poets’ work held in Special Collections.Read more…

Colin McCahon drawings identified in the James Hackshaw architectural papers helped to authenticate windows at a Rotorua school. Learn more in the fourth Twenty at 20 series article.Read more…

Title pages were once very crowded with lengthy descriptive text. The third story in the Twenty at 20 series examines the book in the Special Collections stacks with the wordiest title page. Read more…