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What was Hamilton like in black and white?

Hamilton City Libraries is now selling the latest edition of its popular heritage calendar.

The theme of the 2021 calendar is “Then and Now” with key sites around the city shown in the past and present.

The calendar is on sale at the six library branches, the i-SITE at ArtsPost and Waikato Museum for $8. Proceeds cover the cost of production.

The historic photos and other images in the calendar are drawn from the Hamilton City Libraries heritage collection.

They show the development of the city, from dirt roads and basic settler dwellings to busier roads, grand buildings and well-established neighbourhoods.

The heritage collection includes 60,000 books, 80,000 photographs, 100,000 items of advertising material and over 1000m of archives, unpublished letters and diaries, and records of former businesses.

There’s also a large and growing collection of oral histories, with the heritage librarians working with the community to capture people’s memories of Hamilton.

The libraries have an ongoing project to digitise the heritage collection, with over 2500 items already available online.

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