Christchurch City Libraries Blog

Had you been a fly on the yet-to-be ceiling of  Papanui Library last Friday,  you would have witnessed  small children standing on tippy toes to touch the screens, agog teenagers saying “How does it DO that?” when the SMART machine reads the barcodes of five books at a time, and game oldies – at least one of whom stole our hearts when he asked “Can I have another go?” after he’d successfully issued his books.

I took my usual approach – read up on the subject first (cautionary note here: I studied books on how to breastfeed – say no more). It all started with an excellent Time magazine article on Alzheimers and its prevention. The message was clear – keep learning, try new things, stay active and socialize as much as possible. That could be my job description. Heeding this advice, I headed to my local and took out  Making the Most of RFID in Libraries and all I can say is that if understanding RFID is what stands between me and failing mental abilities, I am in big trouble.

But what Friday at Papanui showed me  is that you don’t have to understand everything about new technology to benefit from it enormously. And have fun while you are at it.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, the children’s self-issue penguin arrived. He is irresistible and you should come and visit us at Papanui to meet the machines, the helpful staff, the intrepid customers and the groovy penguin.

So if you are still that fly looking down from the ceiling: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Friday at Papanui was poetry in motion, but it was definitely a very happy feat!

Necrology – a list of notable people who have died recently.

• James Atkinson, 1914-2011
  International authority on Luther who offered meticulous insights into the significance of the Reformation
• Stan Barstow, 1928-2011
  Novelist of working-class life who achieved fame with A Kind of Loving
• Walter Bonatti, 1930-2011
  Italian mountaineer renowned for his courage and technical mastery whose career was blighted by a controversy on K2
• Patrick Collinson, 1929-2011
  Scholar and historian whose work transformed the modern study of Elizabethan Puritanism
• David Croft, 1922-2011
  Co-creator of some of television’s most enduring comedies, among them Dad’s Army, ’Allo ’Allo and Hi-de-Hi!
• John Glasby, 1928-2011
  ICI chemist and astronomer who drew on his expertise to moonlight as a prolific writer of pulp fiction
• Richard Hamilton, 1922-2011
  Painter who embraced the march of new technologies and was hailed as the founder of Pop Art
• Ian Kemp, 1931-2011
  Authority on Berlioz who wrote a biography of Sir Michael Tippett
• Emanuel Litvinoff, 1915-2011
  Poet who wrote about his Jewish childhood in the East End and launched a devastating attack on TS Eliot
• J.P. Morrison, 1922-2011
  Christchurch human rights and peace worker, author of Evolution of a city, history of Christchurch to 1903
• Cyril Ornadel, 1924-2011
  Conductor on Sunday Night at the London Palladium who wrote the score for the hit musical Pickwick
• Richard Pearson, 1918-2011
  Gifted character actor who brought freshness to the stalest of roles and starred in a baffling Pinter premiere
• Cliff Robertson, 1925-2011
  Oscar-winning actor who was blacklisted by Hollywood for exposing a fraudulent studio boss
• Kurt Sanderling, 1912-2011
  Celebrated Jewish conductor who fled the Nazis for the Soviet Union
• Nancy Wake, 1912-2011
  One of the most decorated secret agents of World War II

Before we had TV and the internet, we got our news, information and scandal from within the  pages of our local newspapers.

The National Library has recognised their importance  and has digitised 68 New Zealand newspapers published between 1839 and 1945 – and brought them together in Papers Past.

The newspapers in Papers Past are a fantastic resource for information about New Zealand social and political events. Family historians will find the shipping news, births, deaths, marriages and divorces of interest.  I was a trifle disappointed to see my early ancestors in the drunk and disorderly sections!

See what your relatives have been up to in one of our many useful historical and genealogical resources in the Source.

Access these resources  from home with your library card number and PIN, or at our open community libraries.

The autobiography of Mrs Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin

I have to say I was a little intrigued when I saw the title:  The autobiography of Mrs Tom Thumb: a novel.  Was there really a Tom Thumb, let alone a Mrs Tom Thumb?  Apparently there was-  and he even had the title general bestowed on him.

This year two novels and a children’s non-fiction book have been written about either Tom Thumb or his wife.

• The first is children’s non-fiction called  Tom Thumb: the remarkable true story of a man in miniature,
• The second is Little people: a novel
• and the last is one I have just made short work of (can I get away with that?) The autobiography of Mrs Tom Thumb: a novel

It is written from the point of view of Mrs Tom Thumb (aka Lavinia Warren) and is a fascinating and believable account of her life and times, which take her around the United States and then the globe.   It is even a love story of sorts.  All this and she was only 32 inches (82 cm) tall.

If,  like me, your interest in this diminutive couple has been tickled,  you can look up some of the historical newspapers in The Source and see actual articles of the Thumb’s exhibiting around the world.  You’ll need a library card and PIN to access these sites and it’s best to search under General Tom Thumb (aka Charles Stratton).

• The Illustrated London News historical archive
• Gale News Vault

So are there any novels you’ve read that reinforce the old age adage – Truth is stranger than fiction  (so why not base a novel on it)?

Recently I went into the central City and took a series of photographs of the Library Chambers which are now being demolished.  Many people will know the Library Chambers as the old Canterbury Public Library which closed in 1981 when the Central Library moved to its new building across the river on Gloucester Street.

As I walked around snapping pictures of the damaged building memories came flooding back. When I first came to Christchurch I ‘went native’. That is to say, I brought a bicycle to get around. I cycled round to the library and joined up. As well as books I was soon hauling away treasures like LPs  and prints to brighten up my inner city flat.

Then a bit later I worked there briefly in a very part-time capacity. It was the sort of city library I was used to from Wellington. Lots of dark polished wood, a cool refuge on a hot day, a magnificent bank of wooden catalogue drawers in the heart of the library, lots of nooks and crannies with their own special character – the newspaper reading room, the children’s library, the New Zealand room and so on.

We have photos of the old library in our digital collection.

For the library 150th celebrations in 2009 we collected a number of fond memories of the old library both as a physical place and as a lively institution adding much life and richness to our city. Read about the original art that could be borrowed, Mollie Tobeck’s memories of joining the library or Brian Gilberthorpe’s experience of his first job at the Canterbury Public Library.

So goodbye old friend – thanks for all the memories.

The online magazine Salon has celebrated Banned Books Week by musing about books that should be banned, but not from the shelves and not for the usual reasons.

Books make this list not because they are morally reprehensible but because people are made to read them at school and university and they can put a reader off an author for life.

1984, Lord of the flies and Animal farm are mentioned by Salon, all books I read and liked at school (well maybe appreciated is a better word than liked with regard to 1984). But Cranford in the third form saw me estranged from Mrs Gaskell for years until Judi Dench in the  television series brought us back together. All that wasted time when I could have been wallowing in the work of a consummate prose stylist.

What books at the wrong time, in the wrong place and with the wrong teacher put you off?

In France’s Loire Valley, an enterprising stately home owner has cashed in on the fact of their chateau being used as the model for Moulinsart, the chateau of Captain Haddock. (In English it is called Marlinspike Hall)

Chateau de Cheverny has many attractions – the chateau, the beautiful park , a medieval church of great beauty and the rather savage soupe des chiens – daily feeding of a pack of hounds. Added to this is a small Tintin museum full of lots of interactive fun for the kids.

According to Wikipedia “Marlinspike Hall first appears in The Secret of the Unicorn as the home of the story’s villains, the Bird Brothers. At the end of Red Rackham’s Treasure, the manor (found to have been built by an illustrious ancestor of Haddock’s) is purchased by Professor Calculus on behalf of the Captain; the fabled treasure itself is found hidden in the manor’s old chapel, in the cellars. In the following years, Marlinspike provides a home base for Tintin and Haddock in between their various adventures. In The Castafiore Emerald, virtually all of the action takes place in the hall, its grounds, or the surrounding countryside.”

We don’t have the “soupe des chiens” but we are celebrating Tintin and Belgian culture at our libraries all through October.

An early morning Sunday treat was listening to the OverDrive audio recording of ART. This award-winning play is about the breakdown of the long-standing friendship between three men when Serge buys a totally white painting for 2oo,000 euros. Marc is outraged at his extravagance  for a picture of nothing , whilst Yvan’s  attempts to placate them both only serves to aggravate the situation.

Their escalating disagreements are highly humorous and entertaining and raise questions about “What is art?” and “What is friendship?”.

For a very visual person, I did struggle slightly with recognising which of the three actors was speaking. However, the experience of being able to download the audio of such a high quality production to an MP3 player to play out loud was really excellent.

Enabling hubby and I to go to the theatre without the hassle of babysitters, and without even getting out of bed!

Ngaio Marsh (school prefect)

The screening of the documentary Ngaio Marsh – Crime Queen raised a satisfactory amount for the Court Theatre, and took me on a slightly confused trip down memory lane.  Could it be true that I saw a production of hers? Am I really that old? It seems I am.

In 1972 Dame Ngaio came out of semi-retirement to produce Henry V at the gala opening of the James Hay Theatre at the Christchurch Town Hall. It was her last production and the Avonside Girls’ High School Seventh Form attended on a school trip.

So far so good on the map of memory lane – but unfortunately that’s where the journey ended. I can remember Henry V was spectacular, but even far more recent memories of going to the Town Hall and the University of Canterbury’s  Ngaio Marsh Theatre (with its Paul Johns Pop Art portrait of Dame Ngaio) are starting to seem distant.

Our theme this month is Rediscovering Christchurch and it’s easy to rediscover Dame Ngaio. She’s still in the spotlight in Christchurch City Libraries’ images collection; black dress, hair swept back from her forehead and her silhouette giving even more emphasis to the cigarette she’s clutching. Any wonder we were mugs enough to think smoking was  sophisticated.

We have a page on Dame Ngaio, The Ngaio Marsh house in Cashmere is still open to visitors, her books are still here to be read or listened to, and there’s a fascinating recent biography of her.

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy” – W. B. Yeats

Many New Zealanders have Irish blood flowing through their veins.  For those who want to find out more about their Irish ancestral roots then we have Find My Past Ireland.This resource includes:

• The Landed Estates Court records: details of over 500,000 tenants on Irish estates;
• Griffith’s Valuation: information about households from the Famine and up until the start of the civil registration in 1864;
• Indexes to Irish wills dating from 1270 – 1858;
• Over 400,000 gravestones and church memorials;
• Emigration and military records;
• Over 250,000 obituaries and other newspaper notices from all over Ireland.

This complements information you will find on Find My Past UK and Find My Past Australia.

Our license with the distributors mean access is only available in libraries and not from home.

There are many other useful  family history resources available within libraries and also from home with your library card number and PIN through the Source!