Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

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Te Ara meets Web 2.0

Te Ara wants you!

So that more of you can help us build Te Ara, we’ve added three new features: a blog, a Flickr group and ‘your stories‘.

Recently, there has been some public discussion about whether, as the internet becomes more interactive, Te Ara is an old-fashioned beast because it isn’t a user-generated site like Wikipedia or Flickr. We make no apologies for the fact that we commission entries from experts in their fields, nor that we search the archives of the country for the most appropriate images and film clips we can find, because the end results are full, accurate and richly resourced. Not to diminish the tremendous resource that Wikipedia is, but you will see the difference if you compare, for example, Te Ara’s entries on Ngāti Porou or Moa with the Ngāti Porou and Moa entries in Wikipedia.

But we do recognise the importance of encouraging users to interact with Te Ara and help build it. Right from the beginning Te Ara went out to the community and invited people to send in stories on particular subjects. You’ll find some great contributions in the entries on The voyage out and Beachcombing, for example.

And now we want to encourage even more people to contribute to Te Ara through our new features.

Your stories

We’re inviting people to send in their own stories related to any subject in Te Ara. Every page on every entry now includes this invitation. We look forward to the response.

Signposts

Signposts is Te Ara’s new blog. We’ve started it because:

• It allows us to let our hair down a bit. We can give personal perspectives and behind-the-scenes glimpses of Te Ara at work.
• We can discuss current events, showing how Te Ara enriches understanding of hot topics. For example, we have had posts on Waitangi Day and Valentine’s Day, and we paid tribute to the lives of Edmund Hillary, Lindsay Poole and Hone Tuwhare.
• We can explore some of the little-known riches of the site.
• We can open up debate, fly flags and hope that people will answer back and tell us what they think.

We welcome guest bloggers. If you have something relevant you’d like to blog about, let us know (email blog@teara.govt.nz). We also encourage you to join the discussion by making comments on the posts.

Flickr

We’ve started our own group on Flickr (a photo-sharing website) to encourage people to contribute their photos to Te Ara. We’re especially interested in images of the regions in our next Places entries. We’re currently collecting resources for the Wanganui entry, so we’re looking for your best Wanganui snaps.

The Bush

The Bush, Te Ara’s third major theme, was launched in September 2007. As well as covering native plants and animals, as you would expect, it also includes landscapes, bush and mountain recreation and conservation.

A recent look at the user statistics for The Bush suggests that people are most attracted by what frightens them. The most popular entry is Spiders and other arachnids, with an image of a white-tailed spider eating a grey house spider getting the most hits. Backing up this theory is the popularity of Poisonous plants and fungi, Wasps and bees and Birds of prey. Though this popular morepork looks more cuddly than scary.

Places entries

Progress continues on our coverage of the regions of New Zealand, with two more launched at the end of 2007.

In October the new minister of conservation and local MP, Steve Chadwick, launched the Volcanic Plateau, written by Malcolm McKinnon. The evening included some memorable words from the great Rotorua historian Don Stafford, and we were able to reciprocate by showing off an image of a younger Don Stafford holding two very large trout.

In December Helen Clark, prime minister and minister for arts, culture and heritage, launched the Auckland entries at an enjoyable function at Auckland Museum. Written by Margaret McClure, they offer a rich overview of our largest population centre and include some great film clips of Auckland’s culture, including Sione’s wedding, Bro’Town and Che Fu. There’s also a recording of the Graduate Choir, who performed at the launch.

In 2008 we are hoping to add entries about Wanganui, Southland, Otago and the West Coast.

Progress on The Settled Landscape

By the beginning of March we had received around 80% of the 101 entries commissioned for The Settled Landscape, our fourth major theme. The office is a hive of activity as we check, resource, edit and design these for publication.

We’re loading entries onto the Te Ara staging server in batches of about 10 at monthly intervals. Writers will be sent a link to their finished entry, so they can look through the text and view the images and media that have been chosen to illustrate it. We ask that any queries or comments are sent through promptly so that we can keep to our challenging schedules.

If all goes to plan, we can look forward to a pre-Christmas launch.

Coming up: Theme 5

Booms and busts, cars, ferries, hairdressers, gasometers, rubbish collections, streetwalkers, boy racers, motels – these are some of the subjects we’ll be tackling in our next theme, which covers the economy and city life.

We’re delighted that Malcolm McKinnon and Ben Schrader have agreed to be joint editors and, with the help of an advisory committee, they have almost completed putting together a draft list of contents.

Malcolm is taking responsibility for the sections on the economy, and Ben the entries about businesses and the city. The first entries will be commissioned shortly and we hope to publish the theme at the end of 2009.

Te Ara in print

We’re pleased to say that the care we have taken in making the language clear and accessible for the web, and selecting powerful images, also really pays off in a book.

So far, three books have appeared from Te Ara in association with publishers David Bateman.

Nga iwi o Aotearoa/Māori peoples of New Zealand presents all the iwi entries and the background essays from Māori New Zealanders. It has been very well received within the Māori community and is about to go into a second printing.

Settler and migrant peoples of New Zealand is drawn from the New Zealand Peoples theme, including contextual essays. It has received very good reviews, with people particularly commenting on the accessibility and thoroughness of the text.

Life on the edge – New Zealand’s natural hazards and disasters presents nine entries from Earth, Sea and Sky. It was published late in 2007, and features spectacular images of volcanoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters.

In 2008 we are planning to publish two further books. The first will be the collected ‘short stories’ (abridged versions) of the iwi entries. This will provide a quick and attractive introduction to the major tribes of the New Zealand, aimed particularly at overseas tourists and schools.

The second will be a large and richly illustrated book on people and the sea. Drawn from Earth, Sea and Sky, it will show how the peoples of New Zealand, both Māori and Pākehā, have interacted with the extraordinary and rich sea life that surrounds them.

Comings and goings at Te Ara

It must be the four-year itch, as the last few months have seen the departure of four founding members of the Te Ara team.

Tessa Copland, an excellent editor and the team’s in-house user advocate, joined the ‘brain drain‘ to Australia.
Janette Hart, who began as our super-efficient administrative assistant and became the copyright administrator, was snapped up by a private photographer to run his website and sales.
Shirley Williams, who made a huge contribution to Te Ara in leading the resources team and establishing the processes for managing images and media files, left with her husband for a long-delayed OE.
Helene Coulson – whom we managed to grab the moment she left the Wanganui School of Design and who is really responsible for the outstanding look and high standards of Te Ara’s diagrams, maps and images – left to pursue her academic career at Victoria University.

Sad as these departures are, we are delighted to welcome their replacements:

Helen Rickerby, our new editor, has left behind editing and publishing the Road code to join us. She is also responsible for managing our blog.
Olivia Walley, who comes to us from deepest Birmingham, has taken over as group administrator.
Philothea Flynn is our new copyright officer. Philothea is completing a post-graduate diploma in museum and heritage studies.
Janine Faulknor, who has a background in film archiving, takes over as the new leader of the resources team.
Heath Sadlier, who has been working with us for over two years as a designer, becomes the new leader of the design team.

Feedback on Te Ara

We welcome comments and suggestions about Te Ara, and invite you to fill out a short questionnaire. The information will help us to develop and enhance the site.