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What's new @ Newtown

Library week at Newtown Library!

As part of Library week we asked our customers to attempt a 'Blind Date'...with a book.

Books were wrapped in discrette brown paper and library staff chose a favourite. Upon the paper was placed an enticing description of the contents - let the budding romance begin!

Poetry Pickle

Poetry lovers turned up to read poems by New Zealanders C. K. Stead, Ray Varcoe and beat poet legend Allen Ginsberg as Newtown library hosted an open mike poetry night! The night was chosen to coincide with Montana Poetry day and most readers had bought their own brilliant, enjoyable, inspired poetry.

Storytime

• Storytime is every Wednesday at Newtown Library at 10:30am in the children's area
• Storytime runs for about half an hour, with stories and songs
• Pre-school storytimes are fun and free - there's no charge, and you don't have to book
• Storytime is aimed at pre-school age children (three and four years old) - but younger siblings are always welcome!

Radio Show: Music Ad-Lib

Music Ad-Lib is the radio show of Wellington City Libraries.
Celebrating its 21st year in 2009, the show is a chance for the music geeks, like myself, to get out and promote the Libraries' amazing CD (and related books) collection. Music Ad-lib plays once a month on Access Radio, on Saturdays at 4 pm, you can find out more here: www.accessradio.org.nz - and check out their other community focused programmes.
The show is hosted by Mark and Neil from Central, and myself (Craig), from the South - we all play selections from the catalogue or endeavour to do themed shows. Each of us has our own areas of interest so the show covers a broad range of musical styles. Tune in sometime, there's bound to be something 'different' playing!

Staff Spotlight

This month we talk to Helen...

Q: Your documentary about the Assyrian community in New Zealand called a Taste of Ninevah is available to borrow from the library. Can you tell us about it?

A: The initial idea about "Taste of Nineveh" was to make a short video about the Assyrian migrant and refugee community in Wellington, because many of our customers at Newtown Service Centre (in Newtown Library) where I work are Assyrian. It seemed to me that Wellingtonians, including myself, didn't know much about them.
Newtown Library really wants to reflect the communities which surround it, and so the video project was part of that desire. The project grew and grew because it was so fascinating finding out about their culture and history, and so the "short video" turned into a 40-minute documentary.
I interviewed both young and old community members, and we have some traditional Assyrian celebrations on there, such as one of their huge and glamourous weddings (think "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"), and Assyrian Martyrs' Day, which is their equivalent of ANZAC Day. Unfortunately for them, however, their martyrs are being created daily as the war in Iraq has taken a heavy toll on their community.
The Assyrians came to New Zealand from Iraq as refugees, beginning in 1984 during the Iran-Iraq war. They are unique because they are the indigenous people of Iraq, extending back into Biblical times and further. They are also mostly Christian, unlike the majority of Iraqis who are Muslim.
If you have a neighbour who is from Iraq, I encourage you to ask them if they are Assyrian! - and to get to know them. I can guarantee they will have fascinating stories to tell you about themselves and their culture and history!

Q: What other documentary projects are you working on at present?

A: I have just finished a short video project called "Our Place, Your Place", which is designed to show Wellington's new Muslim migrants that libraries have lots to offer them for their new lives in New Zealand. We want Muslim migrants to think of the Library as "their place", similar to the Kilbirnie Mosque (The Wellington Islamic Centre).
The video also has a short history of Muslim migrants in New Zealand, the first who were here during our goldmining days, then more who came around the turn of the 20th century and founded the first mosques in New Zealand. We worked together with Kilbirnie Mosque and its leaders and members on the video, and it gives Wellingtonians a small glimpse inside the Mosque and its history, and of the lovely people who go there.
We hope to showcase the video on the Library plasma TV screens during Islamic Awareness Week this year, which will probably be in August.

Q: What is your favourite documentary?

A: My favourite of all time is a sort of lyrical essay about time and memory and culture called "Sans Soleil" by a French filmmaker called Chris Marker. It's somewhat obscure, and not truly a documentary but I love it. I hope one day to make something in a similar vein.

More Library week...

We asked our wonderful customers what they like the most about Newtown library...

Check out some of the customer comments to the right in 'Picture Newtown!'

New displays ...

US College rock on CD

Some musicians touch a nerve with the undergraduate student - those freer of mind and liberated of thought. We have a selection of fiery, genre busting musicians that might ring a few bells or inspire new interest. Think - Billy Bragg, Yo la Tengo, early REM, The Violent Femmes, Sonic Youth. What a trip!

Librarians Choice

New on display at Newtown is a selection of librarians choice fiction. This is to be a permanent display so if you're short of time, or a trusting soul, then just dip into the display for something pre-approved. There's novels from across the spectrum, a little dash of the sophisticated right on through to pure trash. Don't be put off by the sticker, we're not at all highbrow in the South, there's bound to be something you'll find and love. And don't forget we want your reviews too, pop onto the website and send us your thoughts on anything you've read, there's readers choice stickers just waiting to be put to good use.

The 70's on Film

There was a new brand of movie maker in the 1970's who challenged conventional attitudes, approaches and styles. Influenced by the French new wave, European film and directors from the Golden age of American movies they become the mainstream and provocative film became the norm. Relive those heady days when great films like 'Taxi Driver', 'The Godfather' and 'Don't look Now' came out and it was just another day at the movies...!!

Staff Recommend

Movies:

In the Valley of Elah (DVD)
A thrilling expose of post-war shock. Tommy Lee Jones is amazing as a father, struck numb by grief, searching for answers about his son's disappearance following his return from Iraq. Certainly not a 'happy' film, but one that is steeped in realistic portrayals of the widespread consequences of conflict, both personal and political. --Craig

Good luck Chuck (DVD)
Beautiful Jessica Alba, handsome Dane Cook - and - thousands of good looking women. Funny, naughty, offensive - hilarious! --Violetta

Iron Man (DVD)
Last night I watched 'Iron Man', based on the Marvel comic-book hero and it was a whole hill of fun! I was very dubious about Robert Downey Jnr as a super hero (even though I love him as an actor) but I have to say he pulled it off amazingly well and was pretty funny too. Kind of wish I'd seen it at the movies now, it must have been even better on the big screen. --Ellie

CDs:

Somewhere back in time : the best of 1980-1989, Iron Maiden (CD)
Magnificent compilation of Iron Maiden's grandest years. Covering their early 80's releases this album manages in 60 minutes to be the summation of every conceivable cliche and ridiculous posture we associate with heavy metal. A glorious and majestic album, grab this one and you'll never need to hear another metal album ever. Actually that's completely and utterly untrue, you'll need plenty more after this, but you get the point. --Craig

Books:

Breath
by Tim Winton
I enjoyed reading Dirt Music by Tim Winton and was excited when a copy of Breath came my way. I was not disappointed. The story opens with a fifty something ambulance officer attending the apparent suicide of a teenage boy. This experience triggers memories of his own rites of passage as a teenager spent with his friend "Loonie" and "Sando " a big wave surfer who has retreated to this western Australian backwater after a varied career. Together the trio seek out bigger and bigger surf breaks confronting the fine margins between life and death. How long can a single breath sustain life? The rugged landscape of the coast with its extremes of weather and tug of war between sea and land dominates the narrative vividly described in Winton's prose echoes the increasing tensions in the lives of the characters. --Marg

The girl from the Chartreuse, by Pierre Peju
This is a short novel whose impact is in the intensely depicted characters and how they respond to a mutual tragedy. Etienne, a reclusive owner of a second-hand bookshop called "The Verb To Be" knocks down and seriously injures a little girl who darted out in front of his van. Horrified he visits her in hospital and meets her mother who is so out of touch with reality that she had forgotten to pick her daughter up from her new school. Doctors encourage them to keep talking to the child but as the weeks pass and the child remains in a coma her mother who has always struggled to communicate stops visiting. Etienne finds himself the little girl's only visitor continues to come and read to her in the hope that she will recover. Pierre Peju leaves the reader thinking about the effects of bullying, depression and the suddenness in ordinary life of life changing incidents. The writing is precise and vividly beautiful. Be prepared to be stunned. --Lois