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

The Otago Daily Times (ODT) turns 150 today. Founded by Julius Vogel in 1861, the newspaper was the first daily newspaper in New Zealand and still proudly states today that it is independent and privately owned.

As an image researcher, I’ve been very lucky – Te Ara’s relationship with the ODT dates from 2003, and has enabled us to include many wonderful images in the encyclopedia from the Otago region. Currently we have 340 ODT images up on Te Ara, and more to come.

The first ones we received included such diverse images as the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda III, visiting Dunedin; an elderly Japanese rugby player; and traditional New Zealand dress as interpreted by a new citizen. Later, when we started working on the themes Earth, Sea and Sky and The Bush, one of the great joys was being able to include some of chief photographer Stephen Jaquiery’s bird photographs, such as this one of a silvereye, or this, of a New Zealand pipit.

As someone who grew up in Dunedin, the ODT was my newspaper, and researching it for work was like coming home, in a odd way. Interestingly, there were some things that other staff who had also grown up in Dunedin remembered. One of them was the sex workers’ advertisements in the Personal columns, letting prospective clients know which small towns they would be visiting in the upcoming week.

The ‘Regions’ section of the ODT is also a section I remember well, with its local news and rural focus – and some wonderful photographs of things I remember from my childhood, such as hoar frosts and bad rabbits. And the mutton pies at Palmerston … travelling for a different job, one of my colleagues would insist on stopping there to get a mutton pie and a cheese roll – signs we were back down south.

There are many, many others – cute children, scarfies (both historical and contemporary), beautiful landscapes, and of course, our national hero, Shrek.

So thank you to the management for allowing us to reuse these images, to all the ODT photographers, who have taken such great photos, and thank you also to Glenda at the Star Shop for all her efficient assistance over the years – happy birthday to you from all of us at Te Ara!

Continuing our series of posts about how Te Ara comes into being, one of our resourcers tells us what they do.

In the bizarre and wonderful world of Te Ara a resourcer, or resource researcher, is one of the people who find the images, video, sound, maps, ephemera and so on that sit alongside, and hopefully enhance, the text. Like me! And Emily, and Marguerite. We also have a manager, Janine (job description: ‘herding cats’), and two lovely copyright administrators, Phil ‘n Andy.

After the text for a Te Ara entry has been written and checked, but before it is edited, a copy of it comes to a resourcer. We have around a week (fingers crossed) to read it, understand it, and come up with lots of ideas of suitable resources to sit alongside it. Then we take our suggestions to a meeting that involves the writer, theme editor, resource team manager, the general editor and uncle Tom Cobbley and all, where we present our ideas and they get discussed and (hopefully) agreed upon.

Although our imaginations are unlimited, there are a few practical things we need to keep in mind, such as the budget (limited), timeframe (limited), and the availability of the resources. Because of this the more resources that are made available online, the happier we are. These days we are very happy, especially with some of New Zealand’s local collections such as the Palmerston North Library’s digital library coming online.

Other sources depend a lot on what theme we are working on. The GNS Science and the Department of Conservation photograph collections were incredibly helpful for the Earth, Sea and Sky and The Bush themes. The Settled Landscape saw us digging through the collections of AgResearch, Hortresearch and a number of other rural-minded institutions. And as for the new theme, Economy and the City - it already looks like we will be hitting the various city archives heavily.

After the resource meeting there are a lot of less fascinating but important bits to do, such as entering each resource in the database we use. This helps us remember to order a copy of it in time, and also makes sure the resource goes up attached to the correct entry, in the correct order - no-one wants to see elephant seals in the farm families entry.

Resourcers then need to create a document for writers to write the captions in, order the resources from the many institutions we deal with, save them into our file system when they arrive, make sure the credit information is correct, and so on. We’re also involved in drafting the maps, graphs, diagrams and interactives that our beloved designers (grovel grovel) then make - the drafts and their attached tracking forms are known in our lingo as the ‘dreaded yellow sheets’.

Whew!

The strange life of a resource researcher at Te Ara – today the office had two rats visit – nice rats for Marguerite to photograph for an entry on Pets (which will be released in late November). Jean very kindly brought in Wendy (a creamy rat) and Lisa (a black and white rat) and as I am typing this, they are being persuaded to pose in front of the camera, having already peed on a number of staff, who gathered around to oohhh and aaahh.

It’s not the first time the office has been infested with animal life to photograph – the giant native worms that our botanist found in her garden, brought in and dumped on a table, are still vivid in my mind – we had to have a number of people worm-wrangling to stop them slithering to the floor while I tried to photograph them. (They’ve gone back to a happy life in the soil, I hasten to add.) We’ve had a large praying mantis, some sand hoppers, a bright yellow plastic elephant, some very dead whitebait (the lights didn’t help the smell of those!) and three French travellers. Luckily, despite our recent work on agricultural subjects, we haven’t had sheep, cattle or horses – I think our ingenuity, never mind our carpets, would be stretched.

In honour of Library Week, we wanted to celebrate and thank libraries and librarians.

Why does Te Ara love librarians and libraries? Let us count the ways…

Because librarians know everything, and if they don’t, they can find it out for you.

Because they love finding the answers to obscure and complicated research questions and will keep looking for months after you’ve asked the question.

Because of their collections, not just of books, but also of maps and photographs and cartoons and magazines and ephemera and newspaper clippings and music and DVDs…

Because they provide great indexes – an invaluable research tool that enables us to track down obscure unreferenced articles with ease and joy.

Because they are developing superb digital resources and every week we find something new.

Because libraries have supplied around a quarter of all the resources currently in Te Ara.

Because here at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage we have a great librarian, Fran, who can find anything and interloan anything, and who has great patience with the fact that half her library now lives semi-permanently on our floor.

Because libraries have supplied around half the team with employment at some stage. (The arts alternative to: ‘Do you want fries with that?’)

Because on cold horrible days when the heating isn’t working, they are a lovely warm place to go and research.

Because the parents on the team tell me they are consistently kind to small children.

Many thanks to:

• Auckland City Libraries - Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero
• Manukau Libraries - Ngā Whare Mātauranga o Manukau
• North Shore Libraries
• Waitakere Libraries
• Tauranga City Libraries
• Hutt City Libraries
• Hamilton City Libraries
• Palmerston North City Library
• National Library of New Zealand
• Alexander Turnbull Library
• Radio New Zealand Library
• Wellington City Libraries - Te Matapihi Ki Te Ao Nui
• Christchurch City Libraries
• Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury
• Hocken Library, University of Otago