March 15 2006
Media release

Library’s ‘soft’ opening is blessed

The doors of the new $15 million Waitakere Central Library were opened to the reading public today, following a dawn blessing by kaumätua, clergy and members of the partnership between Waitakere City Council and Unitec.

An assembly of Waitakere City Council and Unitec personnel toured every floor on the library in the footsteps of Anglican minister Rev Judy Cooper and Rätana Church ministers Rev Fred Holloway and Rev Takutai (“Uncle Doc”) Wikiriwhi.

The morning’s speakers exulted in the library as a storehouse of knowledge. These included Henderson resident Brian Corban who recalled the library’s earliest days as a shed, Mayor Bob Harvey, Unitec’s Dr John Webster and Hare Paniora, Lynne Pillay MP, Te Kawerau A Maki’s Te Warena Taua and Eru Thompson and William (Bill) Teariki (Consul General of the Cook Islands).

The library’s official gala opening will be held on March 23 in the open plaza at Ratanui Street, Henderson. There will be entertainment from 5.30pm-8.30pm.

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The library’s first borrower was Unitec nursing student Grace Xu of Henderson who joined the Waitakere Central Library soon after it opened this morning. Miss Xu’s choice of book was a novel by Megan Crane, English as a Second Language. She is pictured with Library Assistant David Richardson.

ENDS