Dunedin City Library

#126 Do - on another cold and wet winter day, when curling up with a book is a perfect idea (for those of us lucky to escape the flooding), I'm keen to celebrate our local library. The Dunedin City Library was New Zealand's first free public library, established in 1908 at 110 Moray Place - the original building is still there. With over 650,000 items, and a heritage section with over 130,000 books - it's a wonderful resource in our city. The library holds many great events and has a fantastic community focus. I'm loving learning from these two I recently loaned, including this wee fact - Southland was originally to be called Murihiku in 1857 (the transfer of land from Māori to European ownership was known as the 'Murihiku Purchase') when the province was to be separated from Otago, but in 1861 when it was officially named - it became Southland, which greatly disappointed some of the locals at the time.

#book #community #history