Newly-appointed Hocken librarian Sharon Dell says she could not pass up the opportunity to work for the institution.
"I started off my working life at the Alexander Turnbull Library [in Wellington], and places like the Turnbull and the Hocken are such magical places to be,'' Ms Dell said.
"I am looking forward to taking my place in a long line of respected Hocken librarians.''
Ms Dell (57), who takes up her new role on Monday, has been director of the Whanganui Regional Museum since 1995 and before that spent 20 years in a variety of roles at the Turnbull.
She has an honours degree in anthropology and geography, specialising in New Zealand and the Pacific, and a postgraduate qualification in heritage management.
Ms Dell has completed Te Reo and Maori studies courses to honours level, a goal she said had been sparked by her time as head of Maori collections at the Turnbull.
"I don't have a Maori background, but I realised that myself and other librarians at the Turnbull were hampered by our lack of knowledge of Te Reo.
"Because we couldn't read Maori and didn't understand things like the importance of tribal affiliations . . . we couldn't index or arrange material properly.''
Asked if she was a historian herself, Ms Dell said she had a "ascinating and slightly nerdy'' interest in tracing where John White sourced the information for his landmark six-volume work Ancient History of the Maori, published in the 1880s.
However, she said she did not expect to be able to delve into the Hocken's copies of White's books for long periods.
"In all likelihood, my work is not going to leave a lot of time for research.''
But she said it was important that people administering research collections understood how researchers worked and thought, and appreciated the "wow'' moments that occurred when they discovered something new.
