UC Libraries again participated in the architectural ‘Open Christchurch’ Event on Sunday 7 May 2023.

This year we offered a more complete look at our buildings and architectural offerings. Erin Kimber provided guided tours of our archives collection as well as organising talks by Ian Lochhead hosted at Macmillan Brown Library. These tours were booked out early on and saw 30 people experience our wonderful archives.

Puaka-James Hight was also opened up to the public, and the team (Isabella, Hui, Zina, and Dale) were on sight from 10:00am to provide impromptu guided tours, answer questions and support our guests to understand the rich history and heritage of our brutalist marvel in the heart of Christchurch. Zina also worked on a fantastic display in Central Library, which is still up. This display featured architectural drawings, photos from its history (including the fabled picture of Margaret Thatcher’s visit), and descriptions of other major events (such as the earthquakes). We had 37 groups of around 87 unique people come through. We provided postcards of our libraries, badges with images of our libraries and two bookmark designs as well. These were popular, and helped us engage with our visitors, many of whom shared stories about the library when they were students in the 90’s or earlier (one guest spoke about the time when she was studying in the University in the arts centre during the transition to the Ilam campus and her experience studying IT at the time!)

Overall, this was another successful Open Christchurch event which engaged with our community to further their and our own appreciation for our buildings and collections. Future participation could look at expanding what kind of offer we have in Puaka-James Hight and Macmillan Brown to further engage with our communities.