The New Zealand Parliamentary Library ( mi, Te Whare Pukapuka o te Paremata), known until 1985 as the General Assembly Library, is the

library 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 ...

and information resource of the New Zealand Parliament. The present building was completed in 1899.

History of the library to 1965

The first General Assembly Library was a small room shared with the

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 ...

. It contained 750 volumes in 1860. The library then moved to a cottage behind Parliament's main building, and the collection grew to 4000 books. After Parliament moved to Wellington in 1862, some books were sent down on a ship, White Swan, which was wrecked on the Wairarapa coast. Many parliamentary papers and reference books of the inchoate library were lost. The library also lost its accounts in the wreck. The Premier Fox, most of his Cabinet and government officials were on board, but there were no deaths. However, the order to jettison cases of papers and books in an effort to right the ship after it struck a reef, caused those cases to be swept into the Pacific and were never seen again, despite pleas for their return. In subsequent years, it became common to blame the wreck of the White Swan for failure to produce documents which it was "thought inexpedient to produce". The library then moved to six large rooms behind Parliament in Wellington. The earliest catalogue was an author catalogue published in 1867 (8vo, pp. 213). The next was a classified catalogue, published in 1872, the library then contained 8,700 volumes. In 1875, an elaborately classified catalogue of 11,450 books was compiled by Ewan McColl (8vo, pp. 351). In 1880, the library contained 18,562 works, and by 1897 it held close to 40,000 volumes. It was New Zealand's finest library and source of overseas ideas, philosophy and literature for representatives and staff. NZ Premier and poet Alfred Domett supported access for some non-parliamentarians, although the offering of this privilege had its opponents at different times. The writer Katherine Mansfield had borrowing privileges when parliament was not in session, accessing books by

Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...

, Nietzsche, a translation of

Bushido is a moral code concerning samurai attitudes, behavior and lifestyle. There are multiple bushido types which evolved significantly through history. Contemporary forms of bushido are still used in the social and economic organization of Japan. ...

by Dr Inazo Nitobe, the English poets,

Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...

Maeterlinck Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count (or Comte) Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize i ...

, and a book on the psychology of women. The General Assembly Library continued to grow throughout the twentieth century. When, in 1965, it became one of the three bases of the newly formed National Library, it continued to function in the same bipartite manner, as parliamentary service and wide-ranging resource of international thought, art and literature. During 1965 to 1985 the international part of the library expanded significantly as a well-funded core element of the National Library. When the parliamentary activities of the Library were isolated and newly identified as Parliamentary Library, the international library, begun with allocation of funds in 1856, fell into neglect within the National Library, resulting in a 2018 directive of the Minister responsible for the former General Assembly/National Library approving "the removal of all overseas publications from the Overseas Published Collections, excluding those in subject areas identified as collecting priorities in the Overseas Collecting Plan, and in alignment with the 2015 National Library Collections Policy. A large part of the National LIbrary's international collection is therefore the legacy of the General Assembly Library, and its disposal has become highly contentious within New Zealand and overseas.

Services and separate identity

The Parliamentary Library is now solely an information repository and research service for

members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

and parliamentary staff. Access to the building is generally restricted to those on parliamentary business, although research publications produced are available to the public. In 1966 the General Assembly Library/Parliamentary Library became by law a founding entity of the new tripartite

National Library of New Zealand The National Library of New Zealand ( mi, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa) is New Zealand's legal deposit library charged with the obligation to "enrich the cultural and economic life of New Zealand and its interchanges with other nations" (''Nat ...

; much of the library's collection (close to half a million volumes) was moved to various National Library locations, while certain texts inseparable from parliament's functioning remained in the Gothic building. In 1985, the General Assembly Library distinguished its function, becoming henceforth, the "New Zealand Parliamentary Library", and left the National Library to become part of the newly-formed Parliamentary Service. In so doing, it left its wide-ranging "non-parliamentary" collection in the guardianship of the National Library.

The Parliamentary Library Building

1899 construction of General Assembly Library Building

The current library building occupied by the Parliamentary Library in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

was completed for the General Assembly Library in 1899. It is the oldest of the extant buildings in the Parliament complex. It stands to the north of

Parliament House Parliament House may refer to: Australia * Parliament House, Canberra, Parliament of Australia * Parliament House, Adelaide, Parliament of South Australia * Parliament House, Brisbane, Parliament of Queensland * Parliament House, Darwin, Parliame ...

(to its right, looking from the front). The library was originally designed as a three-storey building by

Thomas Turnbull Thomas Turnbull (1824–1907) was a notable New Zealand architect. He was born in Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1824. After qualifying as an architect, Turnbull moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1851. Then in 1861 he moved to San Fran ...

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. It was fire resistant, being constructed of brick made at Mount Cook gaol with an iron firedoor separating the then General Assembly Library from the main entrance section. The third storey of the design was not built to save money (costs had reached £50,000) and it was completed by the government architect John Campbell. He redesigned the parapets, gables and roof to take account of the building's reduced height. Turnbull dissociated himself from the entire project and asked for his name to be removed from the foundation stone. The fireproofing saved the General Assembly Library from the fire of 1907, which destroyed the rest of the wooden parliament buildings. (Coincidentally, the same thing happened in

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, Canada, in 1916—with fire doors saving the Library of Parliament when the Centre Block of the Canadian Parliament burned.)

1990s refurbishment

Like Parliament House, the building was strengthened and refurbished between 1993 and 1995. The building design was replicated to match the original designs. The ornate main foyer, which was damaged by another fire in 1992, was refurbished. The Gothic elements of the roof, including ironwork, turrets, and

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...

s, were recreated. The original iron door (that saved the General Assembly Library in 1907) was restored. The building is registered with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust as a Category I heritage structure with registration number 217.

Gallery

File:Parliamentary Library (27135877946).jpg, Steps leading to entrance File:Parliamentary Library, Wellington, New Zealand (53).JPG, Detail of the roof File:Parliamentary Library, Wellington, New Zealand (56).JPG, Foundation stone

References

External links

Parliamentary LibraryHistory of Parliament's buildings and grounds
an
Library Research Papers
on the New Zealand Parliament website
History of public buildings, including the Library
at Te Ara {{authority control Legislative libraries NZHPT Category I listings in the Wellington Region Buildings and structures in Wellington City Parliament of New Zealand Government buildings in New Zealand 1890s architecture in New Zealand Gothic Revival architecture in New Zealand John Campbell (architect) buildings