Blog post by Debbie Gale, Arrangement and Description Archivist I have recently returned to work from a year’s parental leave and while I am very pleased to be back, my mind is still often occupied by all things ‘baby’. During one of my more recent 4am night feeds, I thought now would be the perfect […]

The Hocken Collections was delighted to host the launch of Dr Donald Jackson Kerr’s latest book, Hocken : Prince of Collectors last night. Donald is of course a colleague of ours and frequent Hocken visitor. We have followed progress on this project with great interest as Donald has spent many, many hours both here and […]

Blog post prepared by Periodicals Library Assistant, Megan Vaughan For the past several years Hocken staff have been working on rehousing our oldest and most precious newspapers in archival boxes. We discovered this copy of the Otago News copied out by hand. The rest of Dr Hocken’s collection of the Otago News are the printed […]

We are very excited to announce that the Hocken Collections has again been successful receiving a Memory of World Registration. This year it is Dr Thomas Morland Hocken’s collection of Church Missionary Society papers that has been added to the register. We made application this year as part of our programme of work to commemorate […]

Less well known than the Hocken’s New Zealand and Pacific material are our collections relating to Antarctica. We recently catalogued a letter with interesting links to Victorian Antarctic exploration and one of history’s most famous palaeontologists. Robert McCormick (1800-1890) was a surgeon and naturalist serving in the British Navy. After recovering from yellow fever contracted […]

Find out more about who Dr Hocken was: library.otago.ac.nz/hocken/drhocken.html

To mark our institution’s centenary we have made the founding art collection of the Hocken, Dr Hocken’s picture collection, available online via the University of Otago Library’s Digital Collections. The showcase offers a representational sample of the pictures that Dr T. M. Hocken gave in trust for the people of New Zealand. At the time […]

Do you like our new banners? Just in time for our centenary on Wednesday we have had some banners installed on the Hocken forecourt. One features a close up of Dr Thomas Morland Hocken and the other a design from the book, The grammar of ornament : illustrated by examples from various styles of ornament, […]

Our new foyer display celebrates the centenary of the Hocken Collections being open to the public. The display is installed now so come and see it. We will be also celebrating the centenary with cake for morning and afternoon tea on Wedneday 31st March in our foyer and lunchroom, all welcome.