Newspapers

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Newspapers on the Ground Floor

Keep up to date with the news in our Newspaper collection which is housed in the magazine shelves on the Ground Floor.

Online Newspapers

Thousands of local, regional, national and international newspapers can be accessed by Library card members for free on the app, Pressreader.

Old Rotorua newspapers

If you are wanting to consult past copies of Rotorua newspapers, these are available in the Don Stafford Room on the second floor. Hard copies are kept for six months.

The following are available on microfiche on the second floor.

• Hot Lakes Chronicle 15 Feb 1895 – 20 Feb 1897, 4-5 Nov 1905
• Rotorua Chronicle 10 Aug 1931
• Rotorua Morning Post 24 Aug 1931 – May 1948
• Rotorua Post May 1948 – Dec 1960
• Daily Post Jan 1961 – Present (with some gaps, please ask staff on the Heritage Information Desk)
• Rotorua Review Oct 1984 – May 2018 (ceased publication)
• The Weekender 1993 – 2023 (not a complete series 1977-1979)

The Hot Lakes Chronicle is also digitised and available on the website Papers Past. Papers Past is a goldmine of historical information, with millions of pages of digitised historical content from all over New Zealand. Click on the link on this page.

Indexes to Rotorua Newspapers

Indexes to Rotorua Newspapers :

• Daily Post and Weekender from 1993-2003. The Weekender was not held back to index in our storage copies of the Daily Post index ends 2004.
• We no longer have access to Newztext database and suggest the Daily Post website from 2008 onwards.

Don Stafford's material:

• Index to Don Stafford’s material is not available to use on any of our computers for the public. However, the card index to Rotorua people is the next best option and each of Don’s folders has an index.

Rotorua Index:

• Many references to newspaper articles on local people and events up to 1986 can be found in the Rotorua Index which can be accessed on the computer in the Heritage and Research area on the 2nd Floor.

Missing newspapers

Most of the Rotorua newspapers before 24 August 1931 no longer exist. This date coincides with a change of ownership of the newspaper and a possible explanation is that the new owner stored the old papers in a building that later burned down. Don Stafford read through the Bay of Plenty Times for the missing period and included Rotorua news from it in his research files which are available in the Don Stafford Room.