The Alexander Turnbull Library is a 'library within a library'. Established in 1920 after Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull gifted his collection to the nation in 1918, its collections and services are now housed within the National Library building.
The Turnbull Library collections are based on Turnbull's personal collection of books, manuscripts, photographs, paintings and sketches.
Over time the collections have been built through donation, bequest, legal deposit, and targeted purchasing to contain millions of items.
More about donations and bequests
The Library’s building redevelopment
The Library building in Wellington is closed for redevelopment, and due to reopen in August 2012. During the relocation period, some collections are available at our reading room at 77 Thorndon Quay, Wellington.
More about collection access through the Wellington building redevelopment period
Published research collections
Published collections of the Turnbull Library contain books, magazines and journals, pamphlets, newspapers, maps, music, websites, and other items that are published.
Cartographic Collection (maps)
New Zealand and Pacific Book Collection
New Zealand Serials Collection
New Zealand Music, Sound, Audio-visual
Printed Ephemera Collection (posters, advertisements, programmes etc)
Special Printed Collections (rare books and fine printed items)
Unpublished research collections
Collections of unpublished items, like original manuscripts, oral histories, photographs, paintings, drawings, prints, and cartoons, are organised by format.
- Archive of New Zealand Music
Drawings, Paintings and Prints
Access items in the collections
Search for descriptions of published items from the Turnbull Library collections, and some digital images of maps, using the National Library Catalogue.
Search for descriptions of unpublished and pictorial items from the Turnbull Library collections using TAPUHI.
Digital copies of selected items are also on the Library's online database of heritage images, Timeframes.
Get help
The catalogues do not list all of the items in the Alexander Turnbull Library but you can get help from staff to find out what else we hold.
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