Public Address | Cafe | Access: A letter from Aunt Daisy about your archives

B.O. Bumble

Thu, 16 Feb 2017 22:09:06 +1300

And just saw this reponse to a recent OIA request:

From my reading of the documents, The License to Occupy, read in conjunction with the Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and Nga Taonga defines the “Archive Collection” held at the Avalon facility as the Television…

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 15 Feb 2017 06:41:54 +1300

The rot started years ago – when they first started putting clueless managers in charge, and some staff there asked questions, but nobody stood up for them and they were forced out – this is where that leads!

B.O. Bumble

Tue, 14 Feb 2017 20:03:03 +1300

So word around town is that the Sound Archive is currently being decimated by Nga Taonga's management...multiple people have left through redundancy or just being disestablished and not applying for new roles.. There goes the institutional knowledge of what's in the collection and where it came from...

Apparently radio broadcasts…

Hilary Stace

Sat, 31 Dec 2016 13:20:40 +1300

And what about the implications on all this of the earthquake damaged Archives NZ building in Wellington?

B.O. Bumble

Sat, 31 Dec 2016 08:12:14 +1300

Dear Aunt Daisy,

I fondly Googled “Aunt Daisy” yesterday thinking I would take a stroll down memory lane and was instead very surprised to discover the turmoil that has engulfed our national audiovisual archive (formerly RNZ Sound Archives).

Then to my shock I discovered a large bundle of correspondence that…

Hilary Stace

Fri, 09 Dec 2016 08:27:08 +1300

Thank you Aunt Daisy for this post. This seems to have been happening below the radar even of those who are regular users of the archives. There was a brief news item on Morning Report this morning

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/319984/worries-as-historic-video,-audio-on-the-move

Sacha

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 23:38:02 +1300

Until a National government stopped the funding for the project.

an enduring NZ motto

Jeanette King

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 21:51:56 +1300

Really upset to hear this. I have worked extensively with the Mobile Unit recordings which are part of the Sound Archives here in Christchurch. These are recordings made on acetate disks (fragile and highly flammable) which were recorded with equipment in vans which came back from recording troops overseas in…

Hebe

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 20:01:37 +1300

To those declaiming from overseas about the unlikelihood of Chch staff not wanting to move to Wellington: it is a valid and very real consideration. It takes experiencing MM9 shaking and 14,000 other earthquakes to have any conception of that.

The proposed Wellington building sits within a few hundred metres…

Russell Brown

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 15:56:58 +1300

Aunt Dsisy wishes to correct some of the information about the history of NTK:

Please find below information on Nga Taonga Korero collection – an Auckland based collection that even predates the formation of the Film Archive in 1981. It has been permanently housed in Auckland for decades.

The formal…

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 14:37:34 +1300

Dear Aunt Daisy
Can't we just store all this archive stuff in your back passage?
(but out of the sun, naturally)
;- )

https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/facts-part-rich-broadcasting-heritage-real-or-not
and
http://www.noted.co.nz/archive/listener-nz-2009/ask-your-aunty/

Nicholson Bakelite

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 14:19:23 +1300

Dear Daisy

It could be that arguments based on the geographical location of post-digitisation carriers are too easily brushed aside by the managerial classes. Some other useful questions of the proponents might include:

• What progress has been made on the digitisation and on-line access targets laid out at the…

Astro Puss

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 13:11:13 +1300

Yes we learn our fate late tomorrow.

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 13:08:42 +1300

Surely they should digitize the media and put it on two or three servers in different countries?

(Audio magtape might be good for thirty years. CDs, nobody really knows, and it depends on whether they're pressed or written, and using what media and technology: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/08/18/340716269/how-long-do-cds-last-it-depends-but-definitely-not-forever).

And yes, rotating media or…

Donald Matheson

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 13:04:10 +1300

Thanks for posting this, Aunt Daisy (and good to hear you're still alive and kicking).

TracyMac, what is the Fairfax archives story? Has someone written about that in detail? It'd be good to gather together these pieces of our broken media and image archive story.

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 12:40:51 +1300

Are these consultation and implementation dates correct ?
– this being the 7/12/16, it appears the final decision is tomorrow!

....or am I being thick here?

TracyMac

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 12:21:26 +1300

The Fairfax archives is an appalling story, but aerial mapping as well? Wow.

One thing the US does well is the fact that all govt archives are public domain. Obviously it doesn't solve the issue of improper archiving, but because the information is freely accessible, and heavily used in all…

Jono

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 12:00:41 +1300

And while we are on the subject, whatever happened to:

NZ's aerial mapping heritage, where the original negatives/plates were owned by NZ Aerial Mapping which went bust a couple of years ago making it exceedingly difficult to access the images not already in ATL, and horrendoosly expensive for anyone trying…

Julian Melville

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 11:42:48 +1300

The perils of putting your archives in one place... if the building collapses then it's all gone. It happened in Cologne and they didn't even have an earthquake: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/27/germany-cologne

Thomas Goodfellow

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 10:17:19 +1300

"could result in a disastrous loss of all the institutional knowledge of the Sound collections in Christchurch and in Auckland" – no 'could' about it. The very staff that embody institutional knowledge are those long-termers with deeper local roots. I expect many such will scorn a move to Wellington not…

Marion Ogier

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 10:16:02 +1300

This is crazy. I totally agree that putting all eggs in the Wellington basket for precious taonga is very unwise. The building holding the archives might hold up in a huge earthquake but the land beneath and around can do crazy things that make the building inaccessible and the systems…

Russell Brown

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 09:53:12 +1300

Some interesting context from an email in response to this post:

It’s worth noting that DIA are currently building a purpose-designed facility that is intended to house the Sound Archive and all its material in a state-of-the-art vault and office space, in Chch – something similar to the outstanding TVNZ…

Public Address

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 09:53:12 +1300

Discussion from blog post.