Happy New Year!

Central City Library in Lorne Street had a make-over last year. To minimise disruption to customers, the refurbishment was done one floor at a time.

This meant that when the First Floor was closed, the only computers available to use was on Level 2 in the Research Centre - so there was a lot of competition for a much smaller pool of computers. We are grateful to our customers for their patience!

Central Auckland Research Centre on Level 2 was completed first. The result is a much improved floor plan with better flow - a lighter brighter space, with plenty of seating. The resources are easier to see and aren't so crammed in. Hopefully a much more welcoming environment.

We achieved this by moving the newspaper service down to the First Floor, and using the former newspaper room as a place for computers, microfilm readers; microfilm cabinets and CD-Rom collections.

We also judiciously weeded our collections. Nothing important was removed - most of the "weeding" was disposal of items with out-of-date information (research guides for example), triplicate / quadruplicate copies and items that had on-line presence on multiple websites. We also removed duplicates and put them into our basement stack - we took large runs of titles and put them in the basement, keeping representative copies on the open shelves, so people know to ask for other years (for example telephone books, Victorian County Histories, Burke's Peerages, Army, Navy and Air Force Lists etc). And we've kept the more popular New Zealand electoral rolls for election years from 1981 out on the open shelves, but have put the in-between rolls into a side stack room on the floor. These are requestable, and just take a few minutes to retrieve.

This has given us more space for people, and allows us to have more space for our growing collections.

We are still tweaking with the layout, as we receive feedback both from staff working in the space, and also from customers visiting.

If you visit and can't find something, please do ask. It might just be in different place, or even in our basement. Ask us and we will find it for you.

Our large format map collection was about the only thing that we removed. The cabinets are so huge - sadly we just didn't have the space for it. These maps were donated to good homes within various NZ Society of Genealogist branches and interest groups.Maps are available online in various places as well.

Our main Reference Desk has changed places too - it's now down the opposite end of the Research Centre near the computers, and we also have staff circulating on the floor that you can call on for assistance.

You may also see new faces in the Research Centre. Our team is the now called the "Research and Information team" - and we are now a team of 17 full and part time staff. We also look after some of the collections on the First Floor. With the new staff and responsibilities, our specialties have grown to include Music, Law, current Council documentation, car manuals and Statistics.

In addition to our current team members, the staff from other teams in Central Library may also be rostered to work in the Research Centre. The sharing of staff resources is to enable us to have a more flexible workforce, and to ensure that we all know something of each others collections and responsibilities.

This of course means that on-the-job training and coaching is taking place. Subject specialist help is still not too far away if  the rostered staff member can't help - one or more of us is usually around, and staff can ring a call bell, or we also offer Book A Librarian sessions for longer more in-depth questions.

• need assistance to begin their family history research
• need help to use the Family and Local History Digital Library databases and subscription websites
• have a family history research ‘brick wall’ that they need assistance with

• What is your question?
• Provide names, dates and country of people (or places) you are needing information for
• Where have you looked already?
• What proof do you already have about that person (people)?
  Most importantly - have you already got hold of any birth, marriage or death certificates that may answer your question? Review them again with fresh eyes.

St Thomas’s was built in 1877, and designed by architect Charles Tringer. As Don Donovan in the lovely book Country Churches of New Zealand wrote, work was due to begin April 1877, but the contractor, whose lowest bid of £588 had been accepted, failed to show up.  It was Fred and Bert, the Ellerm Brothers, who had the job done in time for Bishop Hadfield to consecrate the church in November. While the church with its mid-Victorian gothic style exterior is wonderfully charming, inside is even more so. Built of totara, the Ellerm lads used pegs and dowels in place of nails, and etched their names in a totara beam near the back. The church boasts a pipe organ and at the front, stained glass windows of Christ and the four gospel writers, donated in the 1960s.

In another co-incidence that particular weekend, the old Ellerm farm was for sale, and we went to check out the open home. The last time I’d been in this house I’d have been five-years-old, back when I'd go out to stay for the weekend, ride on the tractor with Poppa, (the farm was a Border Leicester stud farm), and play Canasta with whoever was up for a game. Inside, it took a while to figure out where everything had been, due to renovations, additions and, naturally, the house being much smaller than I remembered.
All round it was a pretty good - and quite unexpected - weekend.
For more on New Zealand's wonderful old country churches, do check out Don Donovan's book. There are borrowable copies available from Auckland Libraries.
Joanne
Central Research

At a recent talk here at Auckland Libraries, many of us came away buzzing over ideas on preserving ‘our’ story. What can we do right now, to get those interesting things about ourselves organised for posterity?
Our speaker, Jan Gow, discussed a computer programme called Treepad, that has a free edition, but also a  paid edition with useful add-ons such as the ability to save images. But as she said, there are other options, too. For the paper-addicted among us, the stationery sections at book stores are our happy place, from basic binders to the joy of the beautifully-covered journal. One could purchase a different journal for each decade (perhaps colour coded?), and add to it over time. If spread-sheets are so your thing, you could come up with something practical there. And you could always make up an e-book, which I’ll address in a later post. Publishing an e-book can cost you virtually nothing, and you can easily get print copies for little cost, as well. The message is that there are plenty of ways that suit you of getting your story down for that life-long work-in-progress.
A number of practical ideas came out of this.
Take copies of your photos and find out the story behind the image. Write down what you remember about it. Many of our parents, or even us, have slides (remember those?)  One could project slides and simply photograph them from the big screen, but there are devices to copy slides you could look in to. It could be something worthwhile for a family history group to invest in for members to borrow.
Identify significant occasions. Some ideas are transportation (your car-owning history over the decades is a great one!), games, pets, holidays, schools, careers, special events, and of course food. You could scan recipes from Grandma’s old recipe book to add to your collection. That gorgeous prize-winning shortbread...! You could organise your story according to these categories, or by the decades.
Remember to catalogue precious items. What is the story behind that china teacup, or painting, or your grandmother’s ornament? Photograph the item, and add the image to your work in progress with details of the story behind it. Scanning letters, cards and newspaper clippings is a good idea, too. This could be a great thing to do to get the kids (and let's face it, adults!) off social media for a spell, too.
One thing that appealed to me was to make a day of combining oral history with cataloguing. A family member recently suffered a stroke, which brings home abruptly how sad the loss of one's memory can be. When I visit next, I plan to spend time going through those tea cups, ornaments, paper items, and inherited furniture that none of the family really knows anything about, photographing them and jotting down the story behind them. Recording the conversations on my phone will help. Not only will it, I hope, be a form of therapy for them, but also fun, and for our family, a record of our own family history.
For more ideas, have a look through our catalogue here. I've used the reference 1 GEN  DOC. There is inspiration aplenty, such as the books  Keeping Family Treasures and Keeping Chronicles: Preserving History Through Memorabilia.
 Joanne - Central Research