A mammoth newspaper delivery
How do you move 20,000 heritage newspapers from Whanganui to Wellington? And no, the answer isn't one paper at a time. Planning and a dedicated team are key.
Wairere House aka ‘Whanganui Computer House’
Wairere House in Whanganui has housed National Library collections for more than 20 years. Originally built by the government in 1972, the building became known as the ‘Whanganui Computer House’ and in 1982 it became the site of a political bombing. Although the building has served the National Library for over two decades, it was never purpose-built to preserve and protect our nation’s heritage collections so, it was time to move!
Moving 20,000 heritage newspapers
Since April 2019, a team of dedicated Alexander Turnbull Curators, Collection Care staff and Library Assistants have been working to prepare and move the Turnbull Library newspaper collections from Wairere House in Whanganui to the National Library in Wellington.
Moving the newspaper collections was a huge task with over 20,000 items needing to be listed, catalogued, and packaged in specialised boxes and then moved. It will come as no surprise that a whole planning team was needed to ensure the whole process went as smoothly as possible.
Newspapers at Wairere House.
Creating an inventory
The first job was to create an inventory, listing the 20,000 newspapers which included title, date, format and size as well as their shelf location in Wairere House. With the collection spread out over three floors and covering around 7,000 linear meters, this was a daunting task taking three months and four library assistants to complete.
Packaging
In August 2019 the packaging phase began. Loose items were boxed into archival cardboard boxes. The bound items were sandwiched between corflute and wrapped with archival paper and cotton tape. In the library world, we call these corflute sandwiches.
Moving 1,500 boxed items
In September 2019, following a blessing with mana whenua the first newspapers were returned to Wellington. Our superhero removal team worked beyond and above the call of duty. Working with our wonderful team of Library Assistants they moved around 1,500 boxed items from the building before Christmas. The moving phase wasn't without its challenges, including the buildings only lift breaking down.
A global pandemic
We planned for several worst-case scenarios but not for a global pandemic. When we went into lockdown in March 2020, we faced the prospect of missing our deadline. Fortunately, the team were able to get back to work in May and the work continued in good time.
Newspapers delivered
Almost two years on and several lockdowns later, the 7,000 linear metres in Wairere House have been condensed down to 4,000 linear metres. Over 20,000 items have been organised into 10,500 items moved from Whanganui to the newly fitted-out store in Wellington.
It’s satisfying to see these heritage collections in their safe new home and made readily accessible for New Zealanders.
Some of the newspapers after they going through the packaging process.
Research with newspapers
You can search for newspapers held by the library on the National Library website and National Library catalogue. The newspapers we hold are available on microfilm and a number are already on the Papers Past website.
National Library website newspaper search
Research with our digital content from home research guide
National Library Catalogue
Papers Past
Researching with Papers Past
If you are in Wellington you can request to view the original newspaper.