Kōrero: Collecting

George Grey, politician and twice governor of New Zealand, amassed a substantial collection of manuscripts, rare books, letters, art, photographs and ephemera relating to New Zealand and a host of other countries during his lifetime. In 1887 he donated around 8,000 volumes to the Auckland Public Library. The library's Sir George Grey Special Collection eventually numbered some 14,000 items, and it holds 27 of Grey's medieval manuscripts, which date from the 12th to the 15th centuries. Here, special-collections librarian Georgia Prince carefully prepares a French missal (book containing the texts used in the Mass) printed about 1471 for an exhibition at the library.