EARLY COLONIAL RECORDS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28435, 15 November 1957, Page 7

EARLY COLONIAL RECORDS

Microfilm Copies For N.Z.

“The Press” Special Service WELLINGTON, November 14. New Zealand will obtain microfilm copies of all documents in Britain relating to New Zealand and to the Western Pacific area from the earliest times to 1900. Initiated in 1948 by the Australian National Library and the Mitchell Library. Sydney, the project envisages that all significant papers relating to New Zealand and certain Pacific Islands will ultimately be available in photographic form in either the Turnbull Library or the National Archives. The documents to be copied will come from the Public Record Office, London, the British Museum, missionary societies, and various other libraries and institutions which relate to Australia. New Zealand, and elsewhere in tfie Pacific area. Included in the material will be the logs and journals of Captain James Cook and other early navigators, reports and correspondence from missionaries in New Zealand and the Islands, dispatches from the Governors of New Zealand, reports from British consuls accredited to native governments in the Pacific, reports and dispatches on the Maori wars and comments and instructions of the British Government on New Zealand and Pacific affairs. The major libraries in New Zealand are equipped with reading machines for microfilms, and it is possible that extra copies of the films will be obtained for use in smaller centres once the initial project is well under way. The project will be extended over a long period, mainly because of financial and staffing problems. Staff must be of specialist standard. At present, one New Zealander, Mrs M. H. . Allington, until lecently reference librarian at the Turnbull Library, is carrying on part-time searching of records while she is in London.