World's biggest zine!

On July 21st  2016, Zine Library Day, in a public workshop at Auckland Central City library, we created one of the world’s biggest zines.

Our zine, titled Zine doggo yeet crocco yeet nice crocco dile dun deet look nice on feet has a page size of 1240 x 845mm (slightly larger than A0), and has 8 pages, excluding covers. It is a collection of mostly art, with some poetry and prose, made by the general public as well as feature artists Chippy and Holly Paynter.

In preparation for the event we researched other large zines and found two main competitors: one created at the MCA in Australia in June this year, and one at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, USA in 2012.

Both of these zines were fold-out, and when folded, are smaller than ours.

The MCA zine is an A6 concertina, and though it has many pages, its page size is much smaller than our A0+, therefore we win.

The Carnegie Library Zine has 6 separate sections that collective fold out to 6’ x 8’, but folded up it is approximately 13” x 13”.

So yet again it folds down smaller than ours and therefore we are the champions.

But seriously, it’s the biggest zine in the world, or at least in the top 3 depending on how you look at it. Thanks to everyone who came along and helped us make it happen!!

Matariki - shine bright you beautiful stars

I chose to blog about Matariki as I knew very little about what it actually meant and the history behind it. Which is totally embarrassing as I have been living in New Zealand for over 10 years.

All the information I talk about in this post was found by researching on different sites I found through Google. It was a good learning experience for me and Matariki is such an interesting topic.

So, for those who are like me, here is a quick low down on what Matariki is all about.

Matariki is the Maori name for small cluster of stars called the Pleiades in the Taurus constellation that rise during the New Zealand winter. For early Maori Matariki was strongly connected to the seasons and was an indicator of the forthcoming year.

The Maori New Year signals a time for connecting with, and giving thanks to the land, sea and sky. It's also a time for the community to farewell those departed and acknowledge the year gone by, and to turn to the future and celebrate new beginnings.

As Matariki is all about getting involved, how about checking out the events that will be happening across Auckland Libraries? We have some really neat children's events planned. Click here for the Auckland Libraries Matariki events page.

Also, how about checking out this page on how to find Matariki, click here to take a peek. If you do happen to find it, please share your photo's with us, we would love to see them.

And lastly, you have to check out Dayne Laird's photos of Matariki from 2014, they are absolutely amazing. Check out his beautiful photos by clicking here.