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

‘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.

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.

The Olympics have finished, and I managed to successfully miss it … but it seems like a good time to write a quiz about the spirit of sportsmanship, the glory of sport and the honor of participation.

Click on ‘Find the answer in Te Ara’ to get some clues. You may find some of them rather cryptic, but you wouldn’t want us to make it too easy would you?

To view the quiz you need to have the latest version of Adobe Flash Player

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.