Famous dead people
Posted 24 July 2008 // Jock Phillips
Volume four of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
At times, preparing a complete encyclopedia of New Zealand can seem like a long road without an end. How do you possibly include everything important about this fascinating little country?
One great advantage we have over most aspiring encyclopedists is that we already have access to biographies of famous Kiwis. The 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand included no less than 722 biographies, and we can depend on the more than 3,000 thoroughly researched and beautifully written stories in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (DNZB). This was put together by a team in the Department of Internal Affairs led by Bill Oliver and Claudia Orange, and was published in five very handsome volumes from 1990 to 2000.
The DNZB includes the great and famous – the Richard Seddons and the Katherine Mansfields are there – but there are also many ordinary people and some wonderful eccentrics. A particular favourite of mine is Henry Poingdestre, who came out to Canterbury from the Isle of Jersey, and established a sheep station, Blue Cliffs. There, he lined the homestead paths with gin bottles, and would ride around in a home-made gig built from packing cases, driven by a mule and a white mare.
More than 500 biographies of Māori people were also translated into te reo Māori.
In 2001 the DNZB went online, with many images added to the biographies. To make full use of the DNZB biographies in Te Ara, we decided to set up a biographies tab and introduce people who were relevant to each entry. We included short blurbs, but to get the full story you had to go off to the eDNZB. At present, this is what you see:
Over the next year we will be integrating the eDNZB into Te Ara as a new theme. So you’ll no longer have to leave us to reach the biographies, and Te Ara will suddenly become a real encyclopedia – with people as well as events and objects. At the same time, we’ll stop including short blurbs and simply list the biographies at the foot of each page, which will look something like this (click the picture for a larger view):
We hope this will be easier for users, and make the biographies more visible. But we are keen to receive your feedback. The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography is one of this nation’s great taonga. We need to do it justice.
