Nau mai ki te kawerongo o Ngā Taonga — welcome to our newsletter

This issue, we introduce our in-house masters of digital media, discuss how archives can benefit te reo speakers (and vice versa) in an interview with recent intern Lady Pokai, and travel back to 1908 via some great footage of Sir Ernest Shackleton departing Lyttelton for Antarctica.
 

COVID-19 Precautions

We'd like to update you on how Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision is responding to the spread of COVID-19. To protect both our staff and the public, we are cancelling all in-person appointments to view material at our Wellington premises for the time being. Our online catalogue of over 6,700 viewable and 750,000 searchable video and audio records is still available, and our experts can still help with queries and requests by phone or email. More information is available on our website. 

Archive Fives – Digital Workflow

In part five of our Archive Fives series, Adam Sondej and Oscar Halberg, digital archivists from our Preservation Services team, talk about their favourite collection items, changing technologies, and why digital video archiving is a bit like tarantula handling. 

‘I wanted to do this internship for my people, for te reo Māori and for its future.’

Me tūtaki tātou ki a Lady Pokai (Ngāti Porou me Te Aupōuri), me āna mahi mō te tekau o ngā wiki kua pahure, i rangahauhia, i whakarārangi hoki i ngā taonga Ngāti Porou i ngā kohikohinga o Ngā Taonga. Nā ōna mōhiotanga mō te reo me te ao Māori, e hāpai ana ia ki te whakahaumako i ngā rārangi mā ngā tupuranga kei te haere; ā muri nei ko tana whakatakanga kia whakarauorahia te mita o Porourangi. I roto i ēnei kupu, i kōrerohia e Lady te whakaohoohotanga i pupū ake ki roto i a ia i ngā wā i whakapā ia ki ēnei taonga a kui mā, a koro mā.

Meet Lady Pokai (Ngāti Porou and Te Aupōuri), who recently spent 10 weeks researching and cataloguing Ngāti Porou content as an intern at Ngā Taonga. Lady's knowledge of te reo and te ao Māori helped her enrich our catalogue listings for future users; next, she's on a mission to revitalise the Porou dialect. In this kōrero, she talks about finding inspiration in archival footage of tīpuna.

Software and tear: collecting born-digital

How do you choose what to preserve for the future when everyone is shooting video all the time? Tom Ackroyd, Digital Collection Team Leader at Ngā Taonga, talks about the emerging field of born-digital audiovisual archiving, and how he handles the 'fire hose' of content being produced 24/7 in the age of YouTube and TikTok.  

Shackleton's Departure

Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton had a long association with New Zealand. Several of his expeditions were launched from or restocked at Lyttelton. Footage from his 1908 departure onboard the Nimrod has recently been scanned by Ngā Taonga, providing incredibly clear footage.
The Nimrod voyage subsequently included the first ascent of Mount Erebus and a visit to the approximate South Magnetic Pole. 

16 March 1910 – The first custom built 'movie theatre' opened in Wellington
18 March 1938 – Tūrongo House in Ngāruawāhia opened 
27 March 1984 – The Trades Hall bombing killed unionist Ernie Abbott.

• We've announced changes in pricing for some of our services.
• We contributed a large amount of material to Len Lye – Motion Composer at Museum Tinguely in Switzerland. Contemporary Hum provided a thoughtful review of the show and Lye's work.
• Our screening of Carmen was well attended and followed by a fantastic panel discussion.
• Our sound archivist Sarah Johnston regularly shares sound recordings on RNZ's Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan.

Are there things you'd like to read about, or do you have suggestions for how we present our newsletter? Your feedback is always welcome – please email us.