Hamilton City Libraries are a group of six

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

Hamilton, New Zealand Hamilton ( mi, Kirikiriroa) is an inland city in the North Island of New Zealand. Located on the banks of the Waikato River, it is the seat and most populous city of the Waikato region. With a territorial population of , it is the country's fou ...

, owned by the local city council. They lend

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditi ...

and

non-fiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with be ...

(for all ages),

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

audiobook An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements. Spoken audio has been available in sc ...

CDs The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Octo ...

and

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

s. From November 2016 to 9 July 2018, a substitute library compensated for the temporarily closed Central branch, and the libraries closed for over 2 months for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

in 2020.

Waikato Waikato () is a Regions of New Zealand, local government region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipa District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton City ...

residents without local libraries can freely use the Hamilton libraries.

Public library history

In 1871 Hamilton Institute appointed a librarian, with support from

Auckland Provincial Council The Auckland Province was a province of New Zealand from 1853 until the abolition of provincial government in 1876. Area The province covered roughly half of the North Island of New Zealand. It was the largest of the six initial provinces, both ...

. By 1874 its reading room had 209 books and 72 subscribers, but, although its books were largely saved from a fire, the secretary then decamped with the funds. A poll under the Public Libraries Act 1869 rejected a rate to set up a library by 17:7 in 1883; without a council decision, the Act required at least 10 ratepayers to request a poll. Next year a new library was established by subscriptions in the Union Bridge toll house, tolls having ended in January 1883, and it was officially opened on 10 October 1884. A new building at the south end of Victoria Street opened on 22 April 1899.

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

library, designed by Rigby and Warren, opposite Garden Place, was opened by Sir

Joseph Ward Sir Joseph George Ward, 1st Baronet, (26 April 1856 – 8 July 1930) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 17th prime minister of New Zealand from 1906 to 1912 and from 1928 to 1930. He was a dominant figure in the Liberal and Unit ...

on 17 February 1908. By 1928 it had 892 subscribers and 10,000 books and, by 1948, 2,344 subscribers and 130,674 books. In June 1960 a new council building opened on Worley St and the library moved from the Carnegie site, which was sold. The Carnegie Library briefly became a Lions opp shop, before being demolished about 1961. In 1968 it moved to William Paul Hall, formerly the Waikato Winter Show building and has been in Garden Place since 20 March 1993. Frankton Library opened on 22 December 1923 and in 1950 became a branch of Hamilton Public Library. , Hamilton had one of the country's largest public libraries.

Branches

There are six current branches:

References

External links

Hamilton City Libraries website

history of Hamilton libraries from 1870
an
1980-2009
https://web.archive.org/web/20161012035637/http://ketehamilton.peoplesnetworknz.info/documents/0000/0000/0070/Hamilton_City_Libraries_1980-2009_a_brief_history_working_draft_Oct_2009.pdf (archive link)]
photo of Carnegie Library about 1910
Buildings and structures in Hamilton, New Zealand Culture in Hamilton, New Zealand Tourist attractions in Hamilton, New Zealand Hamilton City Libraries Education in Hamilton, New Zealand 1870 establishments in New Zealand {{Library-stub