Category: Services

New to Wellington City Libraries: Te Reo Kete

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A māmā and her tamāhine enjoying books from a Te Reo Kete

Te Reo Kete are now available to borrow from five of the libraries in our network: Te Awa-a-Taia (Kilbirnie), Te Awe (Brandon Street), Te Māhanga (Karori), He Matapihi (Molesworth Street), and Waitohi (Johnsonville)

The purpose of the kete is for adults to launch their te reo learning journey, with the option of sharing this experience with their whānau too. Each kete contains ten books plus a card game: five books to help you develop your grammar and vocabulary, two books to familiarise yourself with tikanga, and three kids books to practise all you’ve learned.

You can also supplement your learning, and have a have a quick guide to common phrases, by downloading Wellington City Council’s own Mahau app for either Android or Apple.

Each of our branches have five kete, available on a first-come, first-served basis. They are unable to be renewed or reserved, and must be returned to the same branch they were issued from. The kete are free to borrow, and can be loaned out for six weeks at a time.

For a more comprehensive run down of the terms and conditions, visit our Te Reo Kete page below:

Te Reo Kete

And for a guide to resources to take you further on your te reo journey, visit:

Reo and tikanga: Rauemi

Free CD loans for 2023!

Reece

You know what I really love? The CD players in a car. How when you put the CD right up by the slot, it actually takes it out of your hand, like it’s hungry. It pulls it in, and you feel like it wants more silver discs.
– Tom Waits

From February 1st 2023, Wellington City Libraries will be running a one year trial where all CDs will be free to borrow.

A picture of a shelf full of Wellington CDs available at Te Awe library.You can find our browsable collection of CDs upstairs at Te Awe Brandon Library if you like the hands-on approach to finding music, with roughly 5000 items available covering a wide range of genres including: Popular, Jazz, Blues, Metal, Hip-Hop, Electronica, Soul/R&B, Folk, Classical, Experimental, and World Music – and most of these genre splits are there for separate New Zealand and Wellington music collections if you want to keep it local.

Large shelves from our storage facility, packed to the brim with CDs available for reserve

A further 23,000 items are available to reserve from our storage facility, Te Pātaka – while you can’t go through these in person, you can use our catalogue to filter down to the Off-Site Storage collection and Music CD formats to explore what’s available. All items are free to reserve with a valid library card – just sign in with your card number and PIN!

Having trouble deciding what to check out? Our staff regularly put together short reviews of recent CD releases that have caught their ears, and each month we update the new music in our collection on our What’s New page.

FAQ:
How long are CDs issued for?
CDs are issued for one week, and can be renewed once for an extra week.

Will my previous CD fees be removed?
This trial only applies to CDs issued from February 1st, when the costs will stop being applied upon issuing – previous fees will remain on your account.

I still have pre-paid slots for CDs on a Concession Card – can I use these anymore?
Similar to when we retired the Bestseller collection, we can make these concession card slots available to be used on our magazine, DVD or Vinyl collections. If these alternative items aren’t in your wheelhouse, we can also offer refunds.