Dunedin Public Libraries
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| Established | 1908 |
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| Location | Dunedin, New Zealand |
| Coordinates | 45°52′22″S 170°30′13″E / 45.872886°S 170.503526°ECoordinates: 45°52′22″S 170°30′13″E / 45.872886°S 170.503526°E (City library) |
| Branches | 5 + 2 mobile |
| Collection | |
| Size | 700,000 items |
| Website | www.dunedinlibraries.govt.nz |
Dunedin Public Libraries is a network of five libraries and two bookbuses in Dunedin, New Zealand, owned and operated by the Dunedin City Council. The libraries collection includes over 700,000 items, and around 30,000 books and audiovisual items plus 15,000 magazines are added each year. Members can borrow or return items from any library or bookbus in the network.
Dunedin Public Libraries operates five libraries and two bookbus services.
Dunedin's first free public library opened on 2 December 1908, funded by a £10,000 grant from American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Situated at 110 Moray Place, the library originally offered a reference service only, but a children's reading room and lending library were opened in 1910, followed by lending services for adults in 1911. Services were expanded through the 1930s; in the 1950s, the book bus service was launched and the library's audio visual collection was established.
The library received its first major donation in 1913 when Dr Robert McNab presented some 4,200 volumes of New Zealand history and early voyages. Later donations would include the Walt Whitman Collection (from Mrs J. W. Stewart in 1927) and the Alfred and Isabel Reed Collection, which included medieval manuscripts, incunabula, Bibles, early printing and later manuscripts, works by Dickens and Johnson, and a vast quantity of manuscript letters. (Before the donation of his entire collection, Reed had been anonymously displaying some of his autograph letters in the library's entrance hall since at least 1926; he also openly donated a number of letters, magazines, and novels starting from 1926.) The vast size of the Reed Collection, in addition to the library's continual expansion, necessitated the library's removal to a new location.
Plans for the new library site were sketched in 1973, with construction commencing in 1978. The new building, at 230 Moray Pl, opened in 1981 and remains open to this day. Although the city library was originally independent from other nearby libraries, the 1989 merger of local councils and borough councils led to the creation of the Dunedin Public Libraries network, which incorporated the libraries in Mosgiel, Port Chalmers, Waikouaiti, Blueskin Bay, and Dunedin city into one entity.
The first functioning library in Mosgiel was established in 1881 by the Athanaeum Committee. A new library administered by the Mosgiel Borough Council was opened in 1959, relocating twice before arriving at its present site on Hartstonge Ave. In 1989 the library joined the Dunedin Public Libraries network as a result of local council amalgamation. In addition to usual library resources, the Mosgiel Library operates the Mosgiel branch of the Dunedin City Council Customer Services Centre.
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Wikipedia