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

James Hector in his younger days

Congratulations to Simon Nathan, geologist, former Theme Editor for Te Ara (Earth, Sea and Sky and The Bush), writer of our upcoming entry on the West Coast, and one of our regular bloggers.

Simon has just been announced as the recipient of the inaugural Copyright Licensing Ltd/New Zealand Society of Authors Stout Grant toward a biography of James Hector. Simon introduced us to über-influential and wide-ranging James Hector back in March, in his blog post to mark Hector Day.

Explorer, geologist and natural scientist James Hector founded several of the most important scientific institutions in New Zealand: the Colonial Museum (now Te Papa), the New Zealand Institute (now the Royal Society of New Zealand) and the Geological Survey (now GNS Science). Mountains, dolphins and beaked whales have been named after him.

It’s surprising a biography hasn’t yet been written about someone who has been so significant in New Zealand’s history (I’ve heard rumours this is because his handwriting was so appalling that no-one can decipher it), but Simon is now going to remedy this. He was been well-prepared by writing a biography of fellow-geologist Harold Wellman. All the very best for this mammoth task!

The Denniston incline – a West Coast icon

With New Zealand’s highest rainfall, the highest mountains, and glaciers extending down to near sea-level, the West Coast has the feel of frontier country, combined with spectacular scenery.

West Coasters have always had a reputation for being independent minded, and suspicious of authority and regulations. Gold mining, coal mining and forestry kept the economy going for many years, but nowadays tourism and farming are major employers. Farmers are belatedly realising that the West Coast’s drought-free qualities make it prime dairying country.

The West Coast features in Peter Hawes’s new play, The gods of warm beer , at Centrepoint theatre in Palmerston North. Two young rugby players are poached by league scouts, and suffer the humiliation of upsetting the whole community. It’s a wonderfully evocative play about life in Westport in 1951. Even if the audience probably didn’t understand some of the subtleties of West Coast life, they loved it.

The West Coast will be the next region to feature in Te Ara’s Places theme, and will be published in December 2008.

If you have photos of the West Coast, we’d love you to contribute them to our Te Ara group on Flickr. We’ll select around 20 images for an online exhibition, like the exhibition in our recent Southland entry. We’re particularly interested in things that are distinctive about the region. Visit our Flickr group for more details.

Even though we love the internet, we don't think books are history

‘You work for that Te Ara thing, don’t you?’ he said. ‘Can’t say I have ever looked at it myself. I don’t really believe in websites. Books are my thing.’

‘He’ was my host at a New Zealand Book Month event two weeks ago. It’s great that we celebrate books – I was happy to take part and, it must be quickly said, my host was a gracious gentleman. But his attitudes to the web are not unusual in the book fraternity and sorority. To such people, the web still seems cheap and nasty, full of superficial ‘sound bites’, appealing only to the 30-second mind, and with no serious ideas. I’m sure you will have heard views like this – similar to comments about film or television in their early days.

It’s true that the web requires new modes of presentation – sites that are simply a digitisation of books don’t work well. The paragraphs and sentences are too long, the words too allusive, the images too sparse. Just compare Te Ara with encyclopedias that began their life as large volumes – such as the Encyclopedia Britannica or the Canadian Encyclopedia.

But, done really well, the web can deliver outstanding information with a richness of media and a layering of experience not possible on the printed page. At Te Ara, we are passionate about the ability of the web to tell important stories.

This doesn’t mean we think that books have past their use-by date. In fact, over the last two weeks two members of the Te Ara team have published books: Helen Rickerby, one of our editors, has put out a book of poems, My iron spine; and Carl Walrond, a writer, explores how people survived in the New Zealand outdoors in Survive! Earlier in the year I published a book, Settlers, about the non-Māori who came to New Zealand in the century and a half after 1800. We agree that books have a hugely important place in people’s lives. As is often said, you can’t read a website in the bath, and there are few things more enjoyable than being absolutely hooked into a good novel.

Yet, websites are the friend, not the enemy, of books. Writing for the web actually improves your ability to write for the printed page. We’ve discovered that while books don’t usually translate well into websites, good websites can make excellent books. The hard work we’ve put into making Te Ara’s text readable, such as reducing the length of sentences, using headings and sidebars, and illustrating creatively, pays off on paper. It produces accessible books with great images.

So far we have published three books from Te Ara – Māori peoples of New Zealand, Settler and migrant peoples of New Zealand, and Life on the edge: New Zealand’s natural hazards and disasters. Māori peoples has sold so well that we’re now reprinting.

Shortly, we’ll be publishing two more books – New Zealanders and the sea, which is drawn from 39 entries in Earth, Sea and Sky, and Māori tribes of New Zealand, which reprints the short stores of the iwi entries on the site. Both read well and look gorgeous.

So, in our view, websites should be praised, not despised, by bibliophiles. Next year, let’s have a New Zealand website month alongside book month.

It was very gratifying last night for Te Ara to win the 2008 WriteMark New Zealand Plain English Award for best plain English website. And it was a bonus that another of the ministry’s websites, NZLive.com, received an honourable mention in the same category.

Te Ara editors past and present were on hand to share that rare moment when all the largely invisible work behind the scenes takes centre stage.

Good plain English is one of those things that, if done well, nobody notices. That’s as it should be. Plain English just means saying what you mean in a simple way - rather than using fancy or complicated words unnecessarily. So it should be easy to read and understand. From the beginning Te Ara staff have been committed to reaching a really broad audience. This means we’ve put a lot of effort into using clear and comprehensible language.

So far we’ve published over a million words by more than 100 writers on thousands of pages covering hundreds of topics. Some of the topics are highly technical, and we’ve recruited experts in their fields to write for us. All of their words have been edited for consistency and style by a small team of very talented editors.

In the early days, voices were sometimes raised and teeth gnashed as writers feared the ‘dumbing down’ of their high concepts or blunting of their finely honed prose. But that’s not what plain language is about, and the editors persuasively argued that the most abstruse concepts can usually be presented in a clear and plain way, avoiding jargon and complex vocabulary. That’s one of Te Ara’s real points of difference (along with its richness of illustration and attractive design).

Editors are usually the unsung heroines or heroes of publishing. They certainly are appreciated at Te Ara. Not only do they help writers to make their words speak clearly, but they also write the Short Story for each entry – lively and succinct summaries for a younger audience.

So we are really proud of this award, which honours the core of our work, no jiggery-pokery, bells and whistles or technical gizmos required.

From the judges’ comments:

Readers young and old can get immersed in this website. The website is very well structured in layers to draw the reader from general information into more technical detail. It shows sophistication of writing as well as wide appeal across many types of readers and groups of New Zealanders. The site uses wonderfully plain language and an engaging style with good use of headings, layout, and sidebars.

Hometown boy makes good – David Grant

Te Ara launched its coverage of Southland on Monday night, 8 September, with a celebration at Invercargill’s Civic Theatre. Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Mahara Okeroa cut the virtual ribbon.

Our friends at NZLive.com also put on a show. There was an excellent turnout – possibly partly because Jackie, NZLive.com’s manager, hails from Gore, and I think she invited all her relatives!

Author David Grant, who was raised in Southland, spent three months researching in the southern province. Te Ara General Editor Jock Phillips and Resource Team Leader Janine Faulknor also made field trips to capture some of the region’s highlights in digital form.

David says he particularly enjoyed writing about things that were uniquely Southland, like swedes, Bluff oysters and the rolling ‘r’. (’Good for picking up chicks’, says one hopeful Gore-ite in our rather cute video clip).

One of the nice things we’ve been able to do this time is to add a gallery of images from our Flickr group. Thanks to everyone who contributed!

This brings us to the midpoint of our Places coverage – 11 to go. Next up, The West Coast. Watch this space.