Did you get a new device for Christmas but don't know where to start?

Our free Stepping Up Digital skills programme is here to help. January classes are all about getting you set up, and using your new devices.

To register contact your local library or go online to https://diaa.arlo.co/w/upcoming/

Glad tidings of great joy! - Library issue period extended over holidays!!

If you're heading away for the holidays, we have awesome news for you. Any items issued from our libraries between 19 December and 11 January will ALL have the same due date: 30th January. No frantic struggle for wifi to renew online, no having to remember to phone us – it's all done already. Just remember that date now – 30th January, 2021.

After January 11th, we'll be back to our normal loan periods.

Meri Kirihimete from the Library elves.

Did you know that our registrations are now open for the Kiwanis Slip 'n' Slide Challenge Whakatara Kōnekeneke Pāretireti – a summer of reading, challenges, activities, and prizes? 

What is it? 

• A summer programme for children aged 5+.
• It's your reading programme, put together the way you like it!

Simply put, just choose the days you want to read, the number of books you want to read, the number of challenges you want to complete or a mix of all three.  In return, we are offering prizes, Makerlabs, craft tables, Christmas story times and a pool party!

I'm sure you are thinking – How do I sign up?  All you have to do is click here and create a log in. If you participated last year, enter your name and birthday to start!

Sign up here or Log in here 

Taken from our Morrinsville Makerlab earlier this year.

The Te Aroha Library are celebrating the release of local poet Elizabeth Barton's latest book of poetry. Other local poets will also be meeting there to share and perform their own work. Aspiring poets and poetry enthusiasts are invited to drop by the library at 7pm on Wednesday November 11th to meet Elizabeth, share their poetry and mingle with other creative souls!

Elizabeth Barton is a full-time artist and printmaker with works in both private and public collections including Mobil and the V & A Museum, London. She is a member of the Society of Graphic Fine Art, a London based group for professional artists, and will soon have her very own art studio in Te Aroha, a dream that has inspired her since she was 24. With her art, poetry is a passion, with works published on Spillwords, Vita Brevis Literature, and The Failure Baler, the pamphlet featured.

The Failure Baler is the brainchild of a Sheffield editor, Kate Dowling, who has rebelled against the gatekeepers and intelligentsia prevalent in the literary sphere and conceived other ideas about rejection. Any poetry (or art) discarded elsewhere might find a home in her publications. At the last printing of Issue Three, she wryly stated that her 'failure' project was starting to become a success! For her, Top of the World, a poem about Whakapipi, has a sense of place that impressed her.

Elizabeth is the winner of the White Label Cinq Collection competition 2020 and will have a book of her poetry published by Hedgehog Poetry Press, a UK publisher, in 2021. The competition seeks to showcase new and upcoming poets. Hedgehog Poetry Press produces beautifully made books, and have become sought after as much as the poetry it promotes.

Having grown up in the Waikato, Elizabeth has made Te Aroha her home since returning from the UK where she lived for 30 years.