Auckland City Libraries is home to a number of comprehensive collections.
About the basement
In addition to what you can see on the shelves, there are a further 600,000 items stored at Central City Library's basement.
The two basement floors are not open to the public like the rest of the library, but anyone can explore its depths by going on a free
Behind the scenes library tour.
If you ever see the word 'stack' on a book's spine label, or the word 'basement' as you're searching for books in our
catalogue, that means the item is from the basement. Usually, these are older items of enduring value which have been moved to the basement as demand tapered off, in order to make room for new titles.
What's in the basement?
Items stored in the basement include:
- The library’s last copies of older titles which remain in small but steady demand
- Books with a jacket or other aspects of the book design which strongly represent a particular period or genre
- Older works of New Zealand literature and general fiction, as well as earlier volumes of popular fiction series
- Adult non-fiction comprising art, biography, fashion, history, music, politics and transport, particularly New Zealand titles
- Back issues of New Zealand and international magazines and journals
- The Children's Literature Research (CLR) collection
- Children's non-fiction with a particular focus on fairy tales, myths, legends and traditional tales
- Sheet music including orchestral sets, choral sets and chamber music
- Music CDs, older and rarer titles which remain in demand.
How do I access basement items?
There are frequent requests for basement items – these are processed as
general requests, and our staff retrieve items for customers throughout the day.
If you’re visiting Central City Library, you can ask for a book from the basement at any of the desks and it will be delivered via one of the library's
Lamson telelifts within 10 minutes.
If you’re at one of our other libraries, you can ask a librarian to put the request through for you.
When you’re online, whether at a library or at home, and find that the title you’re looking for is in the basement, just click on ‘Request’, as with any other title.
