No Images? Click here 06 June 2017Ngā Tapuwae, the Footprints, is the newsletter of Archives New Zealand. It tells the stories of our people, our work and achievements. In this issue...
EditorialWelcome to another edition of Ngā Tapuwae. The first half of 2017 has been particularly busy, with the opening of He Tohu, the new permanent exhibition, occupying a great deal of our time and attention. I have previously discussed how the notion of stewardship, to me in the role of Chief Archivist, is much more than the administration and management of our national archives. I felt the importance of this role again on the morning of 22 April, when we moved our precious He Tohu taonga to their new home at the National Library. The Crown’s primary responsibility as holder of the taonga is their preservation for future generations. Each of the three He Tohu documents has unique challenges, which we have worked on ahead of the exhibition opening. I am very proud of Archives New Zealand’s contribution to He Tohu and for the delivery of the meticulously planned and superbly executed move of the taonga. Image: Marilyn Little delivers her speech at the He Tohu taonga move event, 22 April 2017 Linking in to the notion of stewardship, I am pleased to share that the Minister of Internal Affairs, Hon Peter Dunne has announced funding of $10.1 million in Budget 2017 for the Department’s Preserving the Nation’s Memory project to safeguard New Zealand’s heritage collections and holdings. This seed funding will allow the project to progress plans to create a new shared Archives-National Library storage facility, to improve the resilience of Archives’ Wellington repository and to increase storage capacity for heritage collections. In this edition, we highlight the He Tohu taonga move; discuss our work on digital transfer; some social media highlights, and shine a light on our Dunedin office’s collaborative work with the University of Otago. We also recap the Archives New Zealand Symposium, which took place on 22 May 2017. Nāku noa nā Marilyn Marilyn Little FeedbackYou may have ideas for how we could improve this newsletter. Please send us your feedback. He Tohu Taonga MoveIn the early hours of Saturday 22 April, New Zealand’s most precious founding documents were accompanied to their new home at the National Library of New Zealand by a ceremonial procession led by a Ngāpuhi tohunga performing karakia. The three taonga documents are:
Image: Archives staff walk alongside the vehicle transporting the taonga up Aitken Street on 22 April 2017 The documents were moved under tight security and strict archival conditions, with each document carried by Archives staff in specially prepared crates into an awaiting truck. The move was of particular significance to the descendants of the signatories and those who support what they embody. For Māori, they represented a sacred tikanga event, uplifting the mana and tapu elements of these three taonga. After the three documents were safely unloaded, they were welcomed into the National Library and a service of thanksgiving was held, followed by a whaikōrero, and speeches from the Minister of Internal Affairs, Hon Peter Dunne, Marilyn Little and Vanisa Dhiru, Vice President of the National Council of Women. Our waiata roopu, Ngā Manu Iere, together with the National Library waiata group, provided tautoko (support) to our speakers. The move event was one of mixed emotions for Archives staff. While saddened that these taonga are no longer as physically close as they were, there is also much excitement about the remarkable new exhibition and the learning opportunities it presents, particularly for young people. He Tohu has been developed and delivered in partnership between the Crown and Māori. It is presented by Archives New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand, both of which are part of the Department of Internal Affairs. The documents remain under the guardianship and care of the Chief Archivist and Archives New Zealand. He Tohu was officially opened by Her Excellency the Rt Hon Dame Patsy Reddy, Governor-General of New Zealand on 19 May 2017, in what former Prime Minister John Key deemed “an event of national significance”. The exhibition then opened to the public on Saturday, 20 May 2017. From 10:00 am until 4:00 pm, a programme of family-friendly activities including cultural performances, exhibition talks, story-telling and craft activities took place. Over 4,000 people attended this event, and around 150 school children visited in the first week. We have a further 20 school groups already booked in for term two. Archives New Zealand SymposiumOn 22 May 2017, Archives New Zealand held a symposium at our Wellington building. The symposium was timed to coincide with the annual meeting of the Council of Australasian Archives and Recordkeeping Administrations (CAARA), of which Archives is a member. The theme of the symposium was Archives in a Changing World, and we were fortunate to have Justine Heazlewood, Keeper of Public Records at Public Record Office Victoria, and Geoff Hinchcliffe, Director of the State Records Authority of New South Wales, delivering talks on volunteer programmes and digitisation respectively. Director of Holdings and Discovery at Archives, Denise Williams, delivered a presentation on earthquake recovery and resilience, where she shared the key lessons from our recent experience of the Kaikōura earthquakes. We also launched our Archives 2057 long-term strategy. This has been developed over the last 12 months with significant input from stakeholders. The strategy sets out four year and forty year milestones and gives a picture on how we are planning to transform the way we work. I encourage you to take the time to read it and we will provide regular updates on implementation through Ngā Tapuwae. You can access copies of the strategy, both in English and te reo Māori. Suspension of physical transfersPhysical transfers to our Wellington repository at Mulgrave Street have been suspended until 1 December 2017. A programme of remedial work will be undertaken to repair and replace damaged shelving in the repository following the Kaikōura earthquake. The storage space currently available is needed to allow us to move archives away from areas of remedial work to ensure appropriate archival care. This means some areas of the repository may be temporarily unavailable while this work is undertaken. This work is necessary to ensure a high-quality and high-functioning repository. The suspension affects public offices that were intending to transfer physical records to the Wellington repository. Transfers to the Auckland and Dunedin repositories are not affected. The Christchurch repository continues to have extremely limited ability to accept transfers. Transfers of born-digital records are not affected. We thank you for your patience while this work is undertaken. If you have any specific questions please email. Digital TransfersThe digital transfer research in our System, Strategy, and Standards team continues and we have plenty of material to keep us occupied. All in all, we have approximately 100,000 digital records on physical carriers to be transferred into Rosetta – our long-term digital preservation system. These consist of a variety of media - from exotic data cartridges, to moderately exotic floppy disks (8-inch through to 3.5-inch), to the more mundane CD, and DVD. The first cab off the ranks came from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage (MCH) in 2005 Electronic public records are fascinating for a number of reasons, and understanding how people will make use of their content is a big part of that. This blog post by the director of the Digital Public Library of America discusses the social contract people implicitly sign up to when reusing data, specifically in context of attribution. He notes, “The flip side of worries about bad actors is that we underestimate the number of good actors doing the right thing.” The next transfer in our legacy collection comes from the Treasury and is restricted for 25 years from 2003. This transfer will be our second restricted ‘born-digital’ transfer in Rosetta so we will make good use of its inbuilt ability to manage this. The biggest challenge is expected to be in understanding the integrity of the data still present on the floppy disks; floppy disks are a magnetic format and prone to the types of data-loss that come with loss of magnetic charge. Snapshots from the ArchivesWith regular contributions from across all our offices, our social media channels provide a snapshot of the millions of items we hold. On Facebook we’ve been working on more in depth posts to help our users get to grips with a particular topic and to promote newly digitised records by posting to the Facebook Notes section. A recent Note by the Research Services team in Wellington looked into the Maps of the New Zealand Company. Image: Wanganui District - Sections and owners names, reserves - scale 40 chains:1 inch - Signed by W. Wakefield [annotations]. [Archives reference: AAFV 997 Box 119/ W7] Although short-lived (1839-1858), the New Zealand Company played a significant role in the colonisation of New Zealand, forever altering the physical and cultural landscapes. Their first shipload of immigrants arrived at Wellington in 1840, and by 1852, of the 18,000 who had sailed from Britain; approximately 14,000 migrated through the New Zealand Company. The Company’s records are now held at Archives New Zealand and include texts detailing land transactions. Alongside these written documents are collections of maps that may have acted as a visual guide during land negotiations or were completed after a purchase. Archives New Zealand holds one of the largest map collections in the country with over 750,000 maps and plans across our four offices. These were created for different purposes, but all illustrate the workings of government. Regional NewsThe Dunedin Office is collaborating with the University of Otago Humanities Division, as part of the University’s HUMS301 programme, where students are placed in a heritage institution in Dunedin to gain some experience in their preferred discipline. Most local heritage institutions are taking part in the programme. Maisie Thursfield has been with us since early March, assisting with the research required for a programme of seminars, particularly with one planned on records held in this office on the history of the Otago Goldfields. Image: Maisie Thursfield discovering the difficulties of 19th century handwriting. Maisie has traced several people through the records, building a narrative we can use to teach others about the scope of our collections. We are also experimenting with this through social media, using the hashtags #WhatHappenedNext #GoldfieldsGoldstories #ArchivesNZDunedin. It’s something of an experiment, but so far there has been good engagement with the posts, and we’re looking to see if people find this a useful way to follow the story and learn more about archives. About UsArchives New Zealand has four offices; Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
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