Ngāi Tahu Archives recording continues
The Ngāi Tahu Archives team continues to work on digitising the photographs from the WAI-27 hearings and we are now moving towards digitising the audio-cassettes of the hearings that are held in the Ngāi Tahu Archive. Our kaupapa is to ensure that these tapes are preserved to the best archival standards and are digitised to a format that can easily be migrated to new technologies in the future. How fantastic it will be when we can view the WAI27 Claim photos and listen to the sound recordings about this crucial part of our history online.
A major shift in focus for the archives team will be to start identifying other ‘at-risk’ items within the Ngāi Tahu Archive collections that require preservation. As well as all the exciting mahi that we have been undertaking with the photographs and sound recordings, we are also busy creating our collection policies and other documents to support the Ngāi Tahu Archives Strategy. This includes recording the background information to the different Ngāi Tahu deposits within the Ngāi Tahu Archives, so we have a greater understanding of these collections, and creating documents that helps explain what ‘archives’ are and why they are important tribally.
If you have photographs at home or old cassette recordings of your whānau that you are worried about and want to provide greater care for them, we recommend going to the following website for advice: http://natlib.govt.nz/collections/caring-for-your-collections
And of course, we’ll help wherever we can.