Visit Te Pātaka’s Virtual Reading Room

Te Pātaka holds Central Library’s huge collection of books, DVDs, CDs and vinyl. Now you can virtually visit the amazing Te Pātaka collection with this panoramic interior view. It even comes with the library sounds that you may miss (or wish to turn off, and now you can!)

Click and drag your mouse to move through the photo and enjoy the added links to parts of our collection via the catalogue.

Audible audiobooks through BorrowBox

Did you know that Audible audiobooks are available to library users through Wellington City Libraries’ eLibrary app BorrowBox?

Download the BorrowBox app, choose Wellington City Libraries as your preferred library, enter your card number and pin — and you have access to over 400 Audible original audiobook titles!

Audible are ‘the largest producer and provider of spoken word entertainment, with genre-bending audible originals, and binge-worthy audiobooks’, and having sampled many of their meticulously recorded, carefully constructed audio productions, we think they do a wonderful job!

To set you on your way, here are 7 favourite Audible original titles available now through our BorrowBox service. Listen well!

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark /Gillian Flynn

For more than 10 years, a mysterious and violent predator committed 50 sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated 10 sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website True Crime Diary, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called the Golden State Killer. Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark – the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death – offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth.

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

The Rosie result / Graeme Simsion

Hilarious and thought-provoking, with a brilliant cast of characters, The Rosie Result is the triumphant final instalment of the internationally best-selling series that began with The Rosie Project.
Until 12 years ago, geneticist Don Tillman had never had a second date. Then he developed The Wife Project and met Rosie, ‘the world’s most incompatible woman’. Now, having survived 4,380 days of marriage, Don’s life-contentment graph, recently at its highest point, is curving downwards.

Rosie has just returned to work and is struggling with an obnoxious coworker. Don, meanwhile, is in hot water after his latest lecture goes viral. But their real worry is their son, Hudson, who is having trouble at school: his teachers say he isn’t fitting in with the other kids.
For Don, learning to be a good parent as well as a good partner will require the help of friends old and new. It will mean letting Hudson make his way in the world and grappling with difficult truths about his own identity. It will also mean opening a cocktail bar.

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

The Body / Bill Bryson

Bryson turns his attention inwards to explore the human body, how it functions and its remarkable ability to heal itself. Full of extraordinary facts and astonishing stories The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny attempt to understand the miracle of our physical and neurological make up.

A wonderful successor to A Short History of Nearly Everything, this book will have you marvelling at the form you occupy, and celebrating the genius of your existence, time and time again.

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle / Stuart Turton

Somebody’s going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won’t appear to be a murder and so the murderer won’t be caught. Rectify that injustice and I’ll show you the way out.
It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy.

As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed. But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.
The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath …

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

Dishonesty is the Second-Best Policy / David Mitchell

But if you’re determined to give it a go, you might enjoy this eclectic collection (or eclection) of David Mitchell’s attempts to make light of all that darkness. Scampi, politics, the Olympics, terrorism, exercise, rude street names, inheritance tax, salad cream, proportional representation and farts are all touched upon by Mitchell’s unremitting laser of chit-chat, as he negotiates a path between the commercialisation of Christmas and the true spirit of Halloween.

Listen to this book and slightly change your life!

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

A Gentleman in Moscow / Amor Towles

On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov – recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt – is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol.
Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval.
Can a life without luxury be the richest of all?

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

Norse Mythology / Neil Gaiman

The great Norse myths, which have inspired so much of modern fiction, are dazzlingly retold by Neil Gaiman. Tales of dwarfs and frost giants, of treasure and magic, and of Asgard, home to the gods: Odin the all-father, highest and oldest of the Aesir; his mighty son Thor, whose hammer Mjollnir makes the mountain giants tremble; Loki, wily and handsome, reliably unreliable in his lusts; and Freya, more beautiful than the sun or the moon, who spurns those who seek to control her.
From the dawn of the world to the twilight of the gods, this is a thrilling, vivid retelling of the Norse myths from the award-winning, bestselling Neil Gaiman.

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

Your Lucky (eBook) Day is here!

Skip the waiting line and borrow the most popular eBooks and audiobooks with our Lucky Day eBook and eAudiobook titles!

Overdrive Lucky Day Promotional Image - It's your Lucky Day

These titles can be found, borrowed and read on a first-come, first-served basis through Libby — the award-winning, one-tap reading app from OverDrive (read more about getting started with Libby). The program is meant to be a bit like the serendipity of picking up popular titles off the shelf in a library.

Browse our Lucky Day Collection

The easiest way to find available titles for both our adult and kids Lucky Day collections is to scan the homepage of either Libby or OverDrive for our special Lucky Day curated lists.

Because our Lucky Day titles turn over so quickly, it’s difficult to provide direct links to Lucky Day copies  (only the ones currently available will show), but examples of recent titles are best-selling fiction eBooks like Fair Warning by Michael Connelly, The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Recent New Zealand non-fiction titles include Maori Made Easy by Scotty Morrison, Impossible: My Story by Stan Walker and Bella: My Life in Food by Anabel Langbein.

You can browse what’s available right now on our Lucky Day shelf. The list of titles will change as books are returned to the collection, so check back often.

Lucky Day titles are a bit different to regular lending copies. They are:

  • Available for 14 days (as opposed to 21 days)
  • Not able to be reserved
  • Not able to be renewed

For even more Lucky Day titles, try our Kids Lucky Day collections, full of the most popular kids authors and titles like Harry Potter, Diary of  a Wimpy Kid and David Walliams stories, sure to make you smile.

For more information on our Kids Lucky Day collections, read this excellent post from our Kids blog by our Children’s coordinator, Stephen!

 

 

 

The full Central Library CD collection is now available to borrow!

It has been a huge job to relocate all our Central Library collections to a new home at Te Pātaka, our new collection and Distribution Centre located in Johnsonville. However we are very happy to announce that the Central Library CD collection is available to be borrowed again in its entirety. Items can be reserved via our online catalogues from Te Pātaka to be collected from any of our other Branch Libraries.
We have decided to remove any fees for reserving items from Te Pātaka. However we have introduced a $2 charge per item if people do not pick up their reserved items within 7 working days of being notified they are available for pick up. This is to help keep the items in the collection circulating for everyone to access.

We have also curated a core collection of ‘Essential Listening’ titles from our large Central AV collection, many of which are unavailable on streaming services in New Zealand. All our ‘Essential Listening’ titles are taken from 1001 albums you must hear before you die & Nick Bollinger’s 100 essential New Zealand albums. They are also tagged on our catalogue. Just type in Essential Listening as a search and you can check them out from home, your device, or on our online catalogues in the library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some pictures of just some of the CD shelves out at Te Pātaka to give you an idea of the scope of what’s available. We will be posting some videos of us amongst the collection soon, as we start to highlight some genres and titles for you!

Catalogue search for World Languages

The easiest way to search for literature in our World Languages collection on our catalogue is to follow these steps:

  1. Enter the name of the language into the search box. For example “Hindi” https://catalogue.wcl.govt.nz/?section=search&term=hindi
  2. Then down the very bottom of the lefthand menu, click on “Language”.
  3. Then click on “Hindi”.
  4. From there you can narrow your search down further using the lefthand menu. Clicking on “Subject” will allow you to choose between Children’s and Adult literature.
  5. Once you have found a book you would like to reserve, click on the orange “Place Reserve” button and enter your account details.

Libby available in Chinese : 中文版的Libby

It is now possible to use OverDrive’s award-winning app, Libby, in Simplified and in Traditional Chinese. If you already use Simplified or Traditional Chinese with your device, Libby will automatically browse, search and display account information in that language now. By changing the default language on your device within the settings, you can then view Libby in your newly chosen language.
现在可以用简体或者繁体中文来使用Overdrive获奖的 app Libby了。 如果您的设备本来就使用简体或者繁体中文的话,Libby会自动使用该语言进行浏览, 搜索或者显示您的账户信息。通过在设置里修改默认语言, 您就可以在Libby上使用所选择的语言。

We also have an eBook collection in Chinese on the OverDrive platform. To access the collection in your browser, go to our Overdrive website (this is a slightly different, alternate option for accessing the Overdrive platform — an alternative to the Libby website). Under the menu across the top left click on ‘Collections’, and then on ‘Chinese’ under ‘Special’. You should end up here Chinese Collection on Overdrive . The same collection is available on the Libby app. To find it on Libby, click on ‘Library’, and then click on ‘Explore’ — it is listed under ‘Guide: Chinese’.
在 Overdrive 平台上,我们也有中文电子书。您可以使用浏览器在 https://wcl.overdrive.com 获取, 在菜单的左上方点击Collections 然后在“Special”下面点击“Chinese” ,您会看到https://wcl.overdrive.com/library/chinese 这个页面。Libby 上也有同样的书集。 途径是:点击“Library”, 然后点击“Explore”, 然后在“Guide: Chinese” 里面就能找到。

You can also read the OverDrive site in Simplified Chinese. Across the very top right of the page there is an arrow next to ‘English’. Click this to change the browsing language to Simplified Chinese.
您也可以在 Overdrive页面里用简体中文阅读。 在页面的最右上方,有一个箭头就在“English” 旁边, 点击该箭头把浏览语言改成简体中文即可。