Christchurch City Libraries Blog

Kaye Matthews-Akaroa

My name is Rob, and I usually work at New Brighton Library, but immediately after the earthquake my family and I moved temporarily to Akaroa.  Akaroa Library was one of the first to open its doors after the February earthquake, and both the town and the library became a haven for many displaced readers.

A truly stunning and scenic hour’s drive from Christchurch, the Akaroa library has all the services of the city branches, but with a seaside peninsula charm all its own.  I went to the library hoping to be able to do something useful for the community and was welcomed with open arms by the staff. I spent three enjoyable weeks listening and talking to all the locals and the many Christchurch refugees. It was great to be able to use the internet, return books and get useful, timely Christchurch City Council information, as well as have access to all the collections available at any of the library’s branches.

Kaye Matthews has worked at the library about 20 years, and is a fountain of local knowledge.  Sadly for us, she is leaving soon, but we hope she will come back and visit often.  If you are out on the peninsula, or would like a change of scenery, Akaroa is a wonderful spot and we think it’s well worth a visit too!

I was jumping for joy yesterday when I found out that the queen of picture books, Julia Donaldson, has been named the Children’s Laureate in the United Kingdom for 2011-2013.

Presented every two years to a writer or illustrator of children’s books to celebrate outstanding achievement, the award carries a bursary of £15,000.

You’ll probably know Julia as the creator of The Gruffalo, one of the most recognisable characters in the world of children’s books, but she has also written many other books including A squash and a squeeze, Room on the broom, The snail and the whale, and her latest picture book, Cave baby.

Each Children’s Laureate has a particular passion that they focus on during their time, and Julia plans to bring her passion for spoken word, rhyme, song and drama to the fore.  ‘With my background in plays and song-writing, I am particularly keen to develop projects which link books with drama and music, and to explore the ways performance can help children enjoy reading and grow in confidence,’ she said on the Children’s Laureate blog.

Julia Donaldson is a brilliant author who will be a wonderful Children’s Laureate.  I’ll look forward to seeing what she can achieve.

An exquisite selection of traditional and contemporary woven garments were elegantly paraded by a small team of quick change artists last Saturday at the launch of  Christchurch City Libraries Matariki celebrations at South Library. The parade was narrated by the well-known weaver Ranui Ngarimu.

We learned the historical significance of the old cloaks, the prestigious events they have been used at and the craftmanship involved in their creation. The older cloaks were a  testament to much painstaking and faithful restoration while the contemporary items displayed the enormous creative flair of  Ranui and other local weavers including the hugely talented Paula Rigby. Read an interview with Paula here.

For those of you who missed this wonderful opportunity there will be a repeat of the event at New Brighton Library tomorrow at 1pm. The sheer logistics of transporting these delicate costumes to the library has involved a committed group whose efforts deserve great credit. I think the library will provide a stunning  backdrop to this window on Māori craftsmanship. Don’t miss it.

Christmas 1914 menu card from Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo, signed by NZ Expeditionary Force Headquarters staff

I wonder if the New Zealand servicemen who bit into their Christmas plum pudding at Cairo’s Shepheard’s Hotel in 1914 understood what a rich history they were adding to. They were not the first expeditionary force to stay there – it was the headquarters of many armies, including those in the Crimean war, the Indian Mutiny and the Boer War.

It first became a hotel in 1841 when Shepheard needed to expand the British hotel and decided to take over the old palace next door which had functioned as the headquarters of Napoleon. He catered to passengers to India and the Far East and by the middle of the century it was a place where “people of the rank and fashion from all countries” could be found. The list of celebrities, royalty and heads of state who stayed there in the following century is a very long one.

Celebrities of the Egyptology sort also used it as a base. Lord Carnarvon for example, in the years he funded Howard Carter’s excavations and their eventual discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922. Perhaps that is what inspired Elizabeth Peters, Egyptologist and author of some  tongue-in-cheek historical mysteries to have her heroes reside there when they visited Cairo on their archeological expeditions.  It was also a wartime watering hole for explorers, diplomats and spies during the 1940s and is used as the base for the  surveying expedition in Egypt and Libya which is at the core of the film The English Patient (although the hotel of that time was burnt down and they actually used a Venetian hotel to represent it).

• View the Menu card in our digital collection
• See the advertisement for Shepheard’s Hotel in the Illustrated London News 1903

Unique and stunningly beautiful. This is my lasting impression of the Parade of Cloaks at South Learning Centre last Saturday. The variety of this small collection exposes the depth of skill and artistry needed to create such items.  The weavers  are of local and national repute:  Ranui Ngarimu, who explained to us the physical attributes and cultural context of each garment, and Paula Rigby. Read our interview with Paula here.

Awed as I was by the elegance of the show, I couldn’t seem to watch and listen at the same time,  so I’m going to see it again at New Brighton Library at 1.00pm this Saturday, and learn a bit more.  Too precious to photograph, the garments must be seen in person, so you’ll have to come too!

When you think of songs that make you want to be a torch singer and wear a bias cut gown, you think ‘I’ve got you under my skin’, ‘Night and Day’ … you think Cole Porter. He was the man behind these glittering gems of the Great American songbook.

He  was born 120 years ago today – June 9, 1891.

• Search BiblioCommons for Cole Porter books and music
• Cole Porter’s music is available online for free from NAXOS Music Library, just login with your library card number and PIN.

Curses! Now you’ll be stuck with that  tune in your head all day, in much the same way that wheels and libraries have been on my mind of late.

It all began with my soft launch into graphic novels – The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger.  Let’s face facts, when talents were being distributed, Niffenegger had definitely elbowed her way to the front of the queue.

Endowed with a fertile imagination and already a very successful writer – think The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry – she is also the gifted illustrator of her books The Three Incestuous Sisters and more recently, The Night Bookmobile . Harking back to the Hindu notion of  Akashic records that keep a tally of all our previous incarnations, The Night Bookmobile keeps a record of all our past reads. What further talents could Niffenegger possibly unveil, other than to set the whole shebang to self-composed music and place a little disc in the back of this beautiful book?

Which leads on to my second crumbling bastion of the month – books with accompanying discs, and in a serendipitous turn of events, I finally got a long-awaited book: Shanachie Tour, A Library Road Trip Across America. I just flipped through the book but actually watched the DVD. It’s about three Dutch librarians who travel across America visiting libraries. Why didn’t we think of that first! Despite a disturbingly truncated presentation, it’s inspirational stuff for library lovers. My favourite quote from the DVD is:

The Universe is made of stories, not atoms.

I can only think of two other books that relate to this theme of wheels and traveling librarians: The Camel Bookmobile  by Masha Hamilton and one other (whose name I cannot remember) about books being transported around South America on a donkey. Whatever was its title?

Ok, so I went to get my cash today for my Malaysia trip. I don’t really want to use my credit card too much on holiday ‘cause  I can sometimes spend a wee bit too much on the old plastic. Also, being quite new to this travel thing, I’m a bit worried about credit card fraud. So … I go into the bank to get some cash. Well, wouldn’t you know it, there has been a bit of a run on Malaysian ringits lately. The bank can let me have a limited amount of  ringits but its all in $10 notes.

While looking at a wad of cash like that may make me feel good,  it  may also make me look slightly conspicuous walking around with a bulging money belt. I had no idea that I should order my money well in advance of my travelling date. I thought there was just a big, old storeroom of it somewhere handy.

So that’s what happens when you aren’t organised. I’ll get some travellers’ cheques though and resort to using my credit card for emergency purchases – like really gorgeous must-have shoes or that desperately-needed new handbag that I’ve promised myself.

So now I’m thinking – what else have I overlooked or left until the last minute? A quick search and I find the perfect book to help me – Ready, Set, Go – Travel. Fabulous – all set now,  just need a lovely coffee and a comfy chair and I can settle in to practise my Malay. What’s your best travel tip for the last-minute traveller?

I’m finding it hard to love winter, but  am hoping to keep interested by thinking of all the books I’ve read with winter in the title. First up is Winter’s bone, a bleak yet somehow inspiring book that was made into a great indie film last year or the year before.

It’s the story of Ree Dolly, who lives with her methamphetamine cook father, her catatonic mother, and her younger brother and sister. Dad has disappeared after posting the family house, such as it is, as bond in order to get bail. If he doesn’t show up for his trial the family will lose their home.

Ree sets out to look for him but the code of silence is as strong in the Ozarks as it is in Sicily (if all the books I’ve read about the Mafia are to be believed, and why wouldn’t they be?).

“That’s the way to get et by hogs, or wishin’ you was” sums up the attitude towards questions about where Ree’s dad may be or what he may have been up to.

Sounds like just the ticket to cheer up a desolate winter doesn’t it? Well it is guaranteed to make you think life among the potholes and the portaloos is preferable to life among the mountain folks and Ree is a truly memorable character. Do you have any favourite wintry reads?

Fishing for whitebait (inanga) on the Kaituna River

Every school holidays we’d load up the Commer van and head to some remote part of the South Island to a camping ground that was usually no more than a clearing in the bush, and where the long drop was dug by Dad on our arrival.

Fishing rods, nets and spares would be in tow depending on the season and where we were headed. August holidays were spent at Anatori on the West Coast in the hope that the whitebait were running. After setting up camp we’d find an unoccupied spot on the side of the Anatori River, put out our spotters, nets, deck chairs and empty buckets then just sit and wait. And wait. And wait some more.

When the whitebait ran it was very exciting, but you had to be quiet in case you frightened them away. Once they swam into the net, Dad would carefully empty them into the bucket estimating our catch. That night we’d feast on whitebait patties cooked on the open fire, mixed with eggs, fried in butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. Yum!

Whitebaiting has been the pastime of many generations, and for local Maori it was an essential part of their local food gathering. This is reflected in the many important mahinga kai sites around Christchurch where a large variety of food was gathered. Inaka (whitebait) were found at many settlements along the Ōtākaro (Avon) River as well as the Opawaho (Heathcote) River.

The history and conservation of whitebait and whitebaiting is actually quite fascinating. Did you know that traditionally nets were made from flax?

Dad still goes whitebaiting every year and although the catch isn’t as plentiful as it was in the early 1980s if I’m lucky I still get a meal when I go back home to visit. Do you have any of your own childhood whitebaiting stories?