Don't bin that brochure!
27 September 2023
Election campaigns are a rich source of social history. The University library has a 112-year-old collection of election advertising.
The University of Auckland library is gearing up for the 14 October election by launching a campaign for donations of political ephemera.
Enjoy an interactive showcase of the good, the bad and the ugly.
Thousands of political leaflets put into household mailboxes over the past 112 years are housed in a Special Collections election archive that also contains car bumper stickers, posters, lapel badges – even a lollipop and a condom.
With more than 5,000 individual items, the collection is one of the biggest of its kind in the country, an invaluable resource for historians and researchers exploring Aotearoa New Zealand’s culture and politics.