A (brief) History of Upper Hutt Libraries

The Upper Hutt community ran a series of campaigns to persuade the Council to open a public library. In May 1952 these campaigns achieved success. Only two months later, on the 4th July, a small public library was opened. It was housed in three small rooms above the Red Robin Milk Bar, which was located in Benge's Building on the corner of Main and Russell streets. The library was primarily staffed by volunteers, however the National Library did second one of its staff, Miss Nuesch, who became the first librarian.

It only took four years before the library outgrew the cramped quarters of the Benge's Building. A larger venue was sought and the library moved out in September 1956. The accompanying photograph shows pupils from Heretaunga College helping shift books for the move

The second location of the Upper Hutt Library was the new council building at the west end of Main Street. Over the next decade, library membership continued to grow, and once again the building proved to be too small to function adequately. In 1966 plans for a new library building, which was to be part of a new Civic Centre on Fergusson Drive, were approved by council.

While waiting on the construction of its new purpose built site, the library was to be temporarily housed on a floor of the Civic Administration Building. The library ended up staying in this location for 10 years.

Here we can see construction work on the new central library. On the 20 July 1978, 12 years after it was proposed, the new Library building on Fergusson Drive opened its doors to the public. The official opening by the Governor-General, Sir Keith Holyoake, followed two days later.

During it’s time in the Civic Administration Building the library grew, aided in 1973 by the revision of boundaries in the Wellington area, which increased the Upper Hutt City area fifty-fold. Membership climbed sharply and in September 1975 a mobile service was introduced to bring library services to the city outskirts.

The library's mobile service has been through a few incarnations over the decades, most recently in 2018, with the introduction of Pūrehurehu, a new bus fitted with wifi, external speakers and solar panels.

In 2021 Upper Hutt Libraries introduced New Zealand's first ever electric vehicle mobile library service, Mangaroa, which complements Pūrehurehu, helping provide greater access and services to the wider Upper Hutt community.

The library got its first computerised library management system in 1993. The previously used manual system had been struggling to deal with the thousands of items being issued every week. This photograph shows the first official transaction being carried out on it.

Four years later, in 1997, the library got its first public access computer with internet. Pictured with it is Kathy Kupenga and Taitea Love.

On 18 March 1947, a meeting of Pinehaven residents was held with the aim to establish a local library under the NZ Government Country Library Service Scheme. Pinehaven Library was established soon after this meeting. The small library was housed for a few months in a corrugated iron shed behind the home of Bryce and Lurline Humphrey at Forest Road, Pinehaven. It was open to its 34 members for one hour on Saturday afternoons and 30 minutes on Tuesday evenings. A small subscription was charged to adult residents to help cover costs. The collection originally consisted of 100 books. When membership hit 40 people in June, it was decided to move the library to a cupboard in the Pinehaven Progressive Association hall.

With demand for the library service growing, in 1951, the Pinehaven Progressive Association (with the help of a grant from the Hutt County Council) extended its hall to include a room for the library with independent access. Eleven years later in 1962 the Hutt County Council provided a standalone library building. Pinehaven library became fully funded by the Heretaunga/Pinehaven District Community Council in 1980, meaning that subscriptions were abolished and membership became free. Local government reformation in 1989 saw Pinehaven Library come under the Upper Hutt City Council, but it did not officially become a branch of the Upper Hutt Public Library until 1995.

In 1996 the Upper Hutt Heritage Collection was established. A temperature and humidity controlled archive storeroom was built in 1997, to safely house and preserve Heritage Collection items. This photograph shows former Upper Hutt City Archivist, Nicola Frean, standing in the newly built storeroom.

In 2012 the Library launched Recollect, its interactive, online heritage database. Recollect allowed items from the Heritage Collection to be available online for the public to view and download from the comfort of their own homes. Designed to be interactive, the founding principle of Recollect was that members of the community could add their knowledge and reminiscences to the digital records, ensuring that important social history could be recorded. It also helped remove barriers of access, enabling the library to make heritage items publicly available without risk to the physical archives themselves. Currently Recollect has more than 28 thousand photographs available, many of which were digitised and uploaded by Heritage staff and volunteers.

In February 2018 a new assessment of the Central Library building was received which designated the building as earthquake prone. The decision was made to close the building immediately, this was done to keep the public and staff safe. Following the closure, the library continued to offer services through Pinehaven and the Mobile Library.

On the 26th April 2018 the temporary "Pop Up Library" was opened to the public. It was located on Level 1 of the CBD Towers on Main Street.