Have your say about our World Languages Collection

Our World Languages Collection contains over 3500 books for adults, and over 700 children’s books, in 30+ different languages. The largest collections are Chinese and Korean, with Japanese third. Last year our priorities for new items were in German, Afrikaans, French, Hindi, Sinhalese, Urdu, Croatian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Next year we plan to give priority to books in Somali, Farsi, Indonesian, Cambodian, Korean and Chinese. We have two magazines, in Chinese and Hindi, and more magazine subscriptions are in the pipeline. We welcome your comments or suggestions.

Would you like to know more about our library system?

Here is your opportunity to ask all those burning questions - how it works, how to get messages, how to contact us? Please post your questions to our blog and we will promptly post a response. Remember, for any query you may have there are probably many others out there who have the same question - so come on and ask us a question. We want to help you!

Draft Hamilton City Libraries Customer Charter

Vision
Shape a City by growing a strong intelligent community with a passion for knowledge.

Hamilton City Libraries aim to:

Create vibrant, inclusive and accessible community places.

Reinforce the importance of bicultural relationships based on good communication, the uniqueness of Maaori heritage, and the values of local iwi.

Provide relevant, up-to-date reference and lending collections, and permanent heritage collections.

Connect the community with leading edge information and communications technology.

Provide great service through highly professional, skilled and knowledgeable staff.

Give you the skills to find the information you want.

Communicate with you and partner with community organisations.

Deliver effective operations with commitment to continuous improvement.

Provide opportunities to receive feedback which will be carefully considered.


Our expectations

To treat one another with courtesy and respect.

To behave in a safe manner in accordance with health and safety regulations.

To act in accordance with operational requirements of designated areas.

To respect and look after the Libraries and their contents for public enjoyment.

To follow library policies and requirements of designated areas.

To refrain from consuming alcohol, drugs and illegal substances in the Libraries; and any food or drink on Level 3 of the Central Library.

To not leave young children alone in the library without reasonable supervision or care (refer the Summary Offences Act, Section 10b).

Inspire me – Were you inspired?

This nationwide television advertising campaign, fronted by celebrities who also happen to be avid library lovers, celebrated public libraries as ‘inspiration for all New Zealanders’ and began in March and ran through to the end of May.

At Hamilton City Libraries, as part of the ‘Inspire me ‘ campaign, very successful visits were made by players from the Chiefs Super 14 rugby, and the State Northern Knights cricket teams, to the Chartwell, Dinsdale, Hillcrest and Central libraries during April. The players read stories to local schoolchildren and teachers, and library customers. Both the Chiefs and the Knights want to do it again next year.

The celebrities, such as Trelise Cooper & Brooke Fraser, were featured on TV ads and posters. Posters of library staff ‘celebrities’ were a big hit with our customers and other staff. Interesting displays of ‘inspirational’ books were changed regularly at each of the libraries. Films of inspirational people talking about books and why they love libraries were played regularly in the Central library.

How did you find the campaign? What would like us to do next year? Please post your comments on to our blog.

Is anyone interested in establishing a book club?

Is anyone interested in establishing a book club? Leave a comment here and will see if there is enough interest to start one.

What do you think about our website ?

Feedback and comments are invited on ways of improving our website.


Web Administrator
Hamilton City Libraries

‘Should Hamilton City Libraries' have a blog?’

OK, so we have noticed a growing trend of user generated content on websites. That’s you guys submitting your comments/thoughts/suggestions/ anything really… for others to read. And because we are always looking for ways to provide you, our customer with a better service, we thought we would try out the idea of having our own Hamilton City Libraries Blog. Maybe we can think of a much more creative name than that for our blogg space, but let’s see what you think about the idea first.

This is your space to make comment, express yourself, and communicate with us and other Hamilton City Library customers.

So – should Hamilton City Libraries have a blog, and if so, what kind of shape should it take?

Do you want to see book reviews and make comments on them? Do you want a general category where people can simply post comments about any library experience? Maybe you want to know more about the information literacy programmes we run. Or maybe blogging is not for you. It really is up to you.