On Tuesday we held our annual festive Library Day. Library Day is a longstanding tradition at Otago Girls’ and this is the 84th consecutive year that this event has been held. The theme this year was Time Travel, tying in with our 150th Jubilee year.

Thank you to all the students and staff who entered the spirit of Library Day by dressing up in costume.

Approximately 400 books were presented to the library by classes, school departments, various groups, and the School Council. I would particularly like to acknowledge the School Board and the PTSA who have each given $1500 to the library to buy books and other resources.

I would like to acknowledge the great work Year 10 students Georgia Hall and Kaitlin Rodger did leading us through the assembly. It is not easy to stand up in front of the whole school and talk.

Our guest speaker on Library Day was our amazing Dance teacher Ms Kirsten Parkinson. Ms Parkinson along with her cousin Kitty Brown are the creators of Reo Pēpi bilingual books for babies. Ms Parkinson, who is a graduate of the Dunedin School of Art illustrated all the books. Kitty, who has a background as an events coordinator, took care of the administrative side of the venture, which has now grown into a fully realised publishing company, Reo Pēpi. The stories are written by both wahine who both recently featured in the monthly Life and Leisure magazine. Ms Parkinson gave a fascinating speech about the process she goes through in preparing the illustrations for her books. What talent!! Ms Parkinson also kindly donated a boxed set of her recent books to the library.