Why does Te Ara love librarians and libraries?
Posted 22 August 2008 // Melanie Lovell-Smith
In honour of Library Week, we wanted to celebrate and thank libraries and librarians.
Why does Te Ara love librarians and libraries? Let us count the ways…
Because librarians know everything, and if they don’t, they can find it out for you.
Because they love finding the answers to obscure and complicated research questions and will keep looking for months after you’ve asked the question.
Because of their collections, not just of books, but also of maps and photographs and cartoons and magazines and ephemera and newspaper clippings and music and DVDs…
Because they provide great indexes – an invaluable research tool that enables us to track down obscure unreferenced articles with ease and joy.
Because they are developing superb digital resources and every week we find something new.
Because libraries have supplied around a quarter of all the resources currently in Te Ara.
Because here at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage we have a great librarian, Fran, who can find anything and interloan anything, and who has great patience with the fact that half her library now lives semi-permanently on our floor.
Because libraries have supplied around half the team with employment at some stage. (The arts alternative to: ‘Do you want fries with that?’)
Because on cold horrible days when the heating isn’t working, they are a lovely warm place to go and research.
Because the parents on the team tell me they are consistently kind to small children.
Many thanks to:
- Auckland City Libraries - Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero
- Manukau Libraries - Ngā Whare Mātauranga o Manukau
- North Shore Libraries
- Waitakere Libraries
- Tauranga City Libraries
- Hutt City Libraries
- Hamilton City Libraries
- Palmerston North City Library
- National Library of New Zealand
- Alexander Turnbull Library
- Radio New Zealand Library
- Wellington City Libraries - Te Matapihi Ki Te Ao Nui
- Christchurch City Libraries
- Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury
- Hocken Library, University of Otago
I can fully agree with everything you’ve said there, the libraries and librarians in Oz are equally as fantastic
Yep, we’ve also had some lovely things supplied by Aussie libraries, such as the seal elephant harness oil from the State Library of Tasmania or this lovely drawing from the National Library of Australia - welcome to the New Zealand bush!