Te Pātāka Kōrero o Puketāpapa Mt Roskill Library
Before Te Pātāka Kōrero o Puketāpapa Mt Roskill Library and the neighbouring Fickling Convention Centre opened to the public in 1977, there were plans to develop the site into a theme park. Fortunately, plans were paused on the rollercoasters and merry-go-rounds. Almost half a century later, the library is an essential seven-day-a-week community facility, with services, collections and events designed for one of the most culturally diverse local board areas in Aotearoa.
Mt Roskill Library is one of the 56 libraries in the Te Pātāka Kōrero o Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland Libraries system. It is co-located with the local Citizens Advice Bureau, and both services regularly collaborate to assist community members, many of whom are new migrants, with the help needed to access government agencies, employment, housing, healthcare, and more.
Reflecting and celebrating Puketāpapa’s diverse cultures is core to Mt Roskill Library’s kaupapa and it holds a substantial Community Languages collection. Almost half of Puketāpapa’s residents are of Asian descent (2018 Census) and the library has resources for both adults and children in Chinese and a wide range of South Asian languages, including Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi and Tamil.
The library also has a large Māori collection, with resources in te reo Māori and bilingual and English. Pacific languages, including Niuean, Samoan, and Tongan language resources, are also featured in the Pacific adult and children's collections.
Mt Roskill Library is one of the 56 libraries in the Te Pātāka Kōrero o Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland Libraries system. It is co-located with the local Citizens Advice Bureau, and both services regularly collaborate to assist community members, many of whom are new migrants, with the help needed to access government agencies, employment, housing, healthcare, and more.
Reflecting and celebrating Puketāpapa’s diverse cultures is core to Mt Roskill Library’s kaupapa and it holds a substantial Community Languages collection. Almost half of Puketāpapa’s residents are of Asian descent (2018 Census) and the library has resources for both adults and children in Chinese and a wide range of South Asian languages, including Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi and Tamil.
The library also has a large Māori collection, with resources in te reo Māori and bilingual and English. Pacific languages, including Niuean, Samoan, and Tongan language resources, are also featured in the Pacific adult and children's collections.
Mt Roskill Library team: Left to right: Jenny Cook, Alison Philcox, Jin Lee, Helen Kerrigan, Po Yee Li, Hebe Kearney. Front row: Luz-Eliana Folau-Brown, Alexis McCullough.
In January 2024, Auckland Libraries’ Community Languages collection expanded to include Somali language books. Mt Roskill Library was selected as the home for several bilingual Somali-English children's books. This small but mighty collection was developed in response to the needs of local Somali-speaking families raised by Puketāpapa community leader Abdul Mohamud. Mr Mohamud presented a dream held by local Somali families to read stories from their home language with their tamariki. The library team is pleased to have made this dream a reality by working with our wonderful Collections team at Auckland Libraries to source books for this small trial collection, which are regularly checked out for Somali home storytimes.
The library team is deeply grateful for their relationships with the local community, organisations and Auckland Council colleagues in an area with such rich and vibrant cultural diversity. Meeting the needs of the community is key. But the library also seeks to celebrate and empower our local whānau, so community collaboration and partnership is a must. Library staff driving events, programming and community engagement across the Albert-Eden Puketāpapa Ward libraries regularly collaborate on cultural celebrations and festivals. A recent success was the Kai United initiative, which library staff designed for the Auckland Council’s World of Cultures festival, with a series of free shared community meals hosted across the libraries, with a local group funded to create the event’s feature cultural dish, and a free crowdsourced community recipe book available at each event.
The library also collaborates regularly with colleagues from Puketāpapa’s only Council-run community centre, providing family activities and learning opportunities for packed-out events for cultural festivals including Matariki, Diwali and Eid. Other examples of important Council-driven collaborations include teaming up with colleagues to collaborate on events for the Albert-Eden and Puketāpapa Eco Festival, PrideFest Out West and Winter Poetry Fest, with great attendance numbers and fantastic feedback from the community.
Mt Roskill Library also regularly teams up with Pātaka Kōrero Kaewa – the Mobile Library and Access Services team on hugely-popular and loved local festivals like the annual CultureFest and and Manu Aute Kite Day on the maunga Puketāpapa / Pukewīwi / Mt Roskill.
Since February 2023, the library has coordinated the Puketāpapa Community, a Local Board-funded initiative with a network of over 200 people from community groups, organisations and government agencies working to support the local community. Alexis McCullough is the network’s coordinator, organising monthly meetings for members to share their mahi and identify opportunities for collaboration and weekly email updates outlining key local events and opportunities.
Coordinating the network has been hugely beneficial in increasing the visibility of library services and collections and has also helped to establish fantastic ongoing library programme collaborations with community groups. One of these is the Arabic Storytime, a monthly event of storytelling and crafts delivered by a local Muslim parent which draws large numbers of families. Another is the library’s partnership with Mercy Hospice initiative Honohono Tātou Katoa: Creating Compassionate Communities centred around death literacy, with a monthly Death Cafe and one-off events such as Cultural Perspectives on Death and Dying.
Bridging the digital divide is a key focus for the library team, with weekly drop-in sessions set up for digital skills support, one-on-one Book a Librarian sessions, and providing access to low-cost home broadband via Skinny Jump supported by the Digital Inclusion Access Alliance. The team also delivers Sensory Storytimes for young adults from the Central Auckland Specialist School and other local high school learning units. Making the library more accessible and inclusive for our disabled whānau is a priority for Mt Roskill Library and they’re working on proactively identifying opportunities to do so.
As you can imagine, the library’s What’s on Today entryway noticeboard is often packed with daily goings-on! In addition to what’s been outlined above, the library team run weekly music and movement sessions for babies (Wriggle and Rhyme) and toddlers (Rhymetime), as well as a weekly family storytime and a games and puzzles afternoon, a monthly Kids Craft Club, and of course, school holiday programming. For the adults, there are also wonderful monthly offerings of Poetry Club, Aotearoa on Film: Documentary Afternoons, and a Shared Reading Group drawing on the kaupapa of The Reading Revolution.
The size and needs of the Puketāpapa community are set to grow rapidly with large-scale housing developments underway locally. While we’re still unlikely to see a Ferris wheel pop up in Puketāpapa anytime soon, their local library will continue to adapt, grow, and change to serve the needs of their beloved community, always seeking to reflect and celebrate the unique and vibrant people of the area.
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MtRoskillLib
Alexis McCullough is the senior librarian community engagement at Mt Roskill Library and lives locally in Ōwairaka. She is proud to serve the community where she calls home. Alexis is the chair of the LIANZA Standing Committee on Climate Action.
The library team is deeply grateful for their relationships with the local community, organisations and Auckland Council colleagues in an area with such rich and vibrant cultural diversity. Meeting the needs of the community is key. But the library also seeks to celebrate and empower our local whānau, so community collaboration and partnership is a must. Library staff driving events, programming and community engagement across the Albert-Eden Puketāpapa Ward libraries regularly collaborate on cultural celebrations and festivals. A recent success was the Kai United initiative, which library staff designed for the Auckland Council’s World of Cultures festival, with a series of free shared community meals hosted across the libraries, with a local group funded to create the event’s feature cultural dish, and a free crowdsourced community recipe book available at each event.
The library also collaborates regularly with colleagues from Puketāpapa’s only Council-run community centre, providing family activities and learning opportunities for packed-out events for cultural festivals including Matariki, Diwali and Eid. Other examples of important Council-driven collaborations include teaming up with colleagues to collaborate on events for the Albert-Eden and Puketāpapa Eco Festival, PrideFest Out West and Winter Poetry Fest, with great attendance numbers and fantastic feedback from the community.
Mt Roskill Library also regularly teams up with Pātaka Kōrero Kaewa – the Mobile Library and Access Services team on hugely-popular and loved local festivals like the annual CultureFest and and Manu Aute Kite Day on the maunga Puketāpapa / Pukewīwi / Mt Roskill.
Since February 2023, the library has coordinated the Puketāpapa Community, a Local Board-funded initiative with a network of over 200 people from community groups, organisations and government agencies working to support the local community. Alexis McCullough is the network’s coordinator, organising monthly meetings for members to share their mahi and identify opportunities for collaboration and weekly email updates outlining key local events and opportunities.
Coordinating the network has been hugely beneficial in increasing the visibility of library services and collections and has also helped to establish fantastic ongoing library programme collaborations with community groups. One of these is the Arabic Storytime, a monthly event of storytelling and crafts delivered by a local Muslim parent which draws large numbers of families. Another is the library’s partnership with Mercy Hospice initiative Honohono Tātou Katoa: Creating Compassionate Communities centred around death literacy, with a monthly Death Cafe and one-off events such as Cultural Perspectives on Death and Dying.
Bridging the digital divide is a key focus for the library team, with weekly drop-in sessions set up for digital skills support, one-on-one Book a Librarian sessions, and providing access to low-cost home broadband via Skinny Jump supported by the Digital Inclusion Access Alliance. The team also delivers Sensory Storytimes for young adults from the Central Auckland Specialist School and other local high school learning units. Making the library more accessible and inclusive for our disabled whānau is a priority for Mt Roskill Library and they’re working on proactively identifying opportunities to do so.
As you can imagine, the library’s What’s on Today entryway noticeboard is often packed with daily goings-on! In addition to what’s been outlined above, the library team run weekly music and movement sessions for babies (Wriggle and Rhyme) and toddlers (Rhymetime), as well as a weekly family storytime and a games and puzzles afternoon, a monthly Kids Craft Club, and of course, school holiday programming. For the adults, there are also wonderful monthly offerings of Poetry Club, Aotearoa on Film: Documentary Afternoons, and a Shared Reading Group drawing on the kaupapa of The Reading Revolution.
The size and needs of the Puketāpapa community are set to grow rapidly with large-scale housing developments underway locally. While we’re still unlikely to see a Ferris wheel pop up in Puketāpapa anytime soon, their local library will continue to adapt, grow, and change to serve the needs of their beloved community, always seeking to reflect and celebrate the unique and vibrant people of the area.
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MtRoskillLib
Alexis McCullough is the senior librarian community engagement at Mt Roskill Library and lives locally in Ōwairaka. She is proud to serve the community where she calls home. Alexis is the chair of the LIANZA Standing Committee on Climate Action.
