Libraries and Learning Services
Special Collections has mounted an exhibition, James Joyce: in his wake, that highlights several works by the Irish modernist writer, including Ulysses, some early poetry and his final novel, Finnegans Wake. The exhibition also features writing, music, fine printing and art inspired by Joyce’s unique voice.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…
Have you ever sat in a classroom in one of the University’s older buildings and wondered about the staff and students who came before you? We take a step back in time to reflect on student life in the 1920s.Read more…
Students managing their complicated timetables this semester will be surprised by the simplicity of the first lecture timetable after the University’s opening in May 1883, our second 20th anniversary of Special Collections Twenty at 20 item.Read more…
Special Collections is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year with a programme of exhibitions, stories, talks and events. This collection of illuminated manuscript fragments was gifted to the University by Emeritus Professor Frank R. Horlbeck, Department of Art History, University of Wisconsin – Madison.Read more…
To mark Niue Language week, Special Collections are pleased to provide online access to a petition sent by Patu-iki Togia-Pule-toaki to the British High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, in October 1899.Read more…
![Architectural drawing of Auckland University College Arts Building [University of Auckland ClockTower] (sheet 8), Lippincott Collection (LP2).](https://www.news.library.auckland.ac.nz/files/2021/09/clocktower-lippincott-wordpress-feature-image-option01.jpg)
2021 marks 100 years since Roy Lippincott and Edward Billson won the competition to design the University’s first significant purpose-built building, now known as the ClockTower.Read more…
Interested in studies about books, authors, publishing, readers and related topics? Registrations are open for the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand 2021 virtual conference, 22-23 November. Read more…
To mark Tonga Language Week 2021, the Archive of Māori and Pacific Sound presents the first two episodes of the AMPS 50th Anniversary Podcast, a series of talanoa (conversations) with five significant academics from the University of Auckland. Read more…
The New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre went live 20 years ago on 20 July 2001, making it one of the country’s longest-running poetry hubs.Read more…
A pirate ship cabaret and tearooms is one of the treasures housed in a collection of architectural drawings by architect S S Alleman (1901-1978).Read more…
James Hector (1834-1907) was a leading scientist and administrator in Aotearoa. For Hector Day, Special Collections highlights a handwritten note by Hector left in a zoological journal.Read more…
The papers of Robin Hyde, held by Special Collections, and the Alexander Turnbull Library, have been inscribed on UNESCO’s New Zealand Memory of the World Register. Special Collections is marking this occasion with the exhibition ‘torrents of amber’.Read more…
The stacks in Special Collections contain countless items that deserve close inspection by researchers. Here are a few that caught the eye of Special Collections staff during 2020.Read more…
The architectural drawings collection of W. Philcox and Sons provides a unique insight into an Auckland building firm from the turn of the 20th century. Search the new collection listing.Read more…
A personal library is more than the sum of the books a person owned. The books we keep can provide unique insights into our life story.Read more…
Celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birthday. View rare manuscripts of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony by visiting our Special Collections display.Read more…
Celebrate Tokelau Language Week. Consult the Tokelau Dictionary online and explore other Tokelau related resources held by Te Tumu Herenga.Read more…
Revisit how Auckland Harbour Bridge was built and the Special Collections the library holds about its history and engineering.Read more…
45 years after the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal, we reflect on its position in Aotearoa New Zealand society.Read more…
Supporting the International Year of Plant Heath; discover Special Collections resources about our native trees and plants, mātauranga and forestry.Read more…
Welcome to Cook Islands Language Week. Celebrate Cook Island culture by exploring the maps, letters, old records and research we have curated.Read more…
A new Special Collections display in the General Library dips into an extensive election ephemera archive to look at two significant, historic referenda issues.Read more…
Watch the playlist and explore selected resources as you celebrate Kiribati Language Week.Read more…
Help future researchers by contributing your pandemic experiences and activities to our Covid-19 archive.Read more…
A series of photographs are hanging in the Special Collections Reading Room in the General Library. Read their backstories and discover more about Cultural Collections.Read more…
The Fine Arts and Architecture and Planning collections are in their new home in the Library. Visit the General Library and view the new locations.Read more…
View the artists’ books display at Special Collections in the General Library until Friday 6 March.Read more…
The Fine Arts Library closed on Monday 18th November 2019. From 2020 the Fine Arts books, journals and supporting services will be available from the General Library.Read more…
The Architecture and Planning Library closed at the end of Semester One. From Semester Two the Architecture and Planning books, journals and supporting services will be available from the General Library. Read more…
While checking the inventory of the papers of New Zealand children’s book author Isabel Maud Peacocke, I saw that one box contained a number of framed prints of ‘unidentified subjects’. Thinking that I could provide researchers with more detail than this,Read more…