Nola Millar Library at Toi Whakaari Drama School

Through Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School, the Nola Millar Library helps support performers, designers, and craftspeople in Aotearoa New Zealand. Named after the first director, the library provides access to its unique collection to current staff and students as well as graduates and the wider performing arts community who can become library members for a yearly fee.

Lisa Hampl with a staff member in the Nola Millar Library.

Nola Millar Library at Toi Whakaari.

Nola Millar was a reference librarian at Alexander Turnbull Library and Victoria University of Wellington. She was involved in amateur theatre in New Zealand from the 1930s onwards and was instrumental in setting up the New Theatre in 1959 which in turn led to the beginnings of performing arts training offered within New Zealand.
 
Since 1998 Toi Whakaari has been physically situated in Te Whaea National Dance and Drama Centre’s buildings in Newtown, Wellington - for those of you who remember it’s the old Winter Show Building. The library has some older items in the collection due to the previous incarnations and locations of the kura. Infamously some items were damaged during an arson attack on a neighbouring massage parlour in 1984. Librarian Ruth Graham and students salvaged what they could, only for another fire to occur near the boxed library items three weeks later.
 
The library’s collection focuses on performing arts and contains over 30,000 items. The library has integrated and shares the collection with their ‘flatmates’, the New Zealand School of Dance. The collection contains over 12,000 play scripts and screenplays as well as books and audiovisual materials.

The collection reflects the programmes Toi Whakaari offers in acting, arts management, costume making, design for stage and screen, and set and props. Enrolments for the newly established Master of Creative Performance Practice (MCCP) will begin later this year. Newer areas of interest reflect the focus of ‘telling our story’, and interest in Māori, Pasifika, and other indigenous arts and artists, continues to grow. Topics covered include acting technique (including accents), classical (ballet) and contemporary dance, costume making (history of fashion, fabric/textiles and pattern making), prop making (woodwork, paint effects, model making, puppet and mask making), stage/scenery design, and more. Newer areas of the collection include animation, cosplay, documentary and filmmaking, drag performance, intimacy, pilates, and much more.

A popular part of the library is the George Webby Room. This audiovisual collection includes a large and varied DVD collection with a substantial amount of Aotearoa New Zealand material. Titles were originally acquired to supplement mainstream video rental store availability but have evolved to reflect the institutions’ interests. A DVD may have a director of inspired creativity, spectacular costumes, or have used an innovative special effect.
 
The main challenges for the library come from being a small organisation, only having two part-time staff members, and not having a large enough student population to support many subscription-based resources. Toi Whakaari’s programmes are performance orientated and the student cohort consists of predominantly young people who often have very little experience in using libraries. A time-consuming dilemma is the number of generous people who want to donate books to the library. This often includes lots of duplicates, damaged items, or things the library does not need. The organisation of, and the ability to support external research requests to, the library’s own archives and visual resources, are also a huge challenge.
 
The plus side of being small and agile is that the library can quickly make changes. They recently abandoned enforcing due dates and fines and are simplifying the shelving system. The library encourages students to join Wellington City Library and has some reciprocal arrangements with other libraries and organisations. In addition to having access to an interesting collection, the library is surrounded by creative people and activities. Information requests can vary from being asked for ‘old’ books to use as props (a box of books is now kept for this purpose) to helping students search things from the ancient world (the goddess Artemis) through to the modern (FAFSWAG)!