Wellington Public Library

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Wellington City Library (Wellington Public Library) in Wellington, New Zealand has over 600,000 books.

The central library was first opened in 1893 on the corner of Mercer and Wakefield Street which is now used as the City Gallery Wellington. In 1991 the current central branch library was opened on Victoria and Mercer Streets along the edge of the Civic Square. The current building was designed by Ian Athfield of Athfield Architects and built by Fletcher Development and Construction.

[edit] Architectural Awards

The library has won two New Zealand architectural awards; The Environmental Award in the Carter Holt Harvey Awards in 1992 and the National Award for Architecture 1993 sponsored by The New Zealand Institute of Architects. The Library consists of 3 main floors. The ground floor contains the Fiction, Sound and Vision centre and main circulation desks. The first floor houses the Sciences and Humanities desk and the Arts, Music and Literature desk. The New Zealand room and reference section are located on the second floor, next to the trophy room. There are two floors above the Library which have until recently been leased by the Department of Conservation (www.doc.govt.nz) and also a basement level which is used for parking and day to day circulation duties. The Library was honoured with an excellence award in 2006 by the New Zealand music board (www.nzmusic.org.nz) for it's 'sing along with Stu' storytime programme.