The Year in Review: Turnbull 2012

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 45, 1 January 2013, Page 81

The Year in Review: Turnbull 2012

CHRIS SZEKELY Chief Librarian Alexander Turnbull Library

This was a year of change and transition for the Alexander Turnbull Library, as staff and collections returned to the refurbished building in Molesworth St after more than two years in temporary and reduced circumstances. The year commenced with the implementation of the Library's new staffing structure, which saw approximately two-thirds of staff either new to the Turnbull or appointed to new or changed positions. The Turnbull continued to deliver credible results, with a number of significant highlights. Several of these are described in this report, with data provided for the period July 2011 to June 2012.

Preserving the Collections

The Collection Care Team entered a new phase under the leadership of Peter Whitehead. In addition to preservation and conservation activities, this team now has responsibility for collection movement (including reading-room retrievals) and repository management. Major achievements included the integration of the serials collection, the re-housing of several thousand photographic negatives undertaken as part of the Pictures Online project, and the conclusion of the Audio Retro Preservation Project.

The Audio Retro Preservation Project's objective was to digitise over 2,000 at-risk audio items. The project was extended to March 2012, with nearly 2,500 items deposited into the National Digital Heritage Archive (NDHA). Content included oral histories relating to the First World War, the Bay of Plenty and Murchison earthquakes, the Wahine disaster, and the 1918 influenza epidemic.

National Preservation Office

The activities of the National Preservation Office (NPO) were managed by the Field Conservator. The position is held by Vicki-Anne Heikell, and is part of the Library's Outreach Team.

The NPO received 159 enquiries, including 93 written enquiries on subjects as diverse as the long-term care of overhead transparencies, disaster salvage guidelines for a public library, the display and storage of textiles, and the management

of college archives. Of these enquiries, 60% were from organisations, the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) sector, iwi and hapu. Individual enquiries were primarily one-off questions. At least six of the organisational enquiries resulted in ongoing NPO advice, support and/or training. The NPO completed five site visits with written assessments. These advisory projects covered government, iwi and non-government organisations. The NPO represented the Library in discussions across the cultural heritage sector to gauge the level of support for New Zealand to set up a National Committee of the Blue Shield (NZBS). Blue Shield is a UNESCO initiative and an international organisation working to protect the world's cultural heritage by co-ordinating ways to meet and respond to emergency situations.

Four preservation workshops/training courses were delivered. Three were delivered with partner organisations Te Papa National Services Te Paerangi and Archives New Zealand Community Archives. Two of the four workshops were hapu focused.

The revised Preservation landing page on the National Library website attracted 1,424 views, with a further 3,263 visits accessing the associated Preservation Guides. Content for a new print and online publication, Digitisation of Heritage Audio Collections, to be delivered in English and Maori, was prepared and the publication, Caring for Taonga - Photographs, was revised in preparation for reprinting.

The NPO delivered three preservation-focused undergraduate papers within Te Wananga o Raukawa's Puna Maumahara Diploma and Bachelor programmes, and two lectures as part of the University of Auckland Anthropology Department Stage 3 paper, Heritage Conservation in Aotearoa. Both these institutions met the cost of travel and accommodation. The NPO also delivered presentations at the NZ Salvation Army Heritage conference, the 'After the Earthquake' symposium, and an ARANZ seminar on Maori archives and record-keeping.

Protecting the Collections

By June 2012 most of the Turnbull Library collections had been moved to their proper locations following the completion of the expanded and upgraded Molesworth St collection storage facilities. A number of individuals deserve recognition for successfully achieving this major logistical exercise, including the construction site liaison officer, Pam Harris, and the collection move manager, Lisa Rutherford. The Library's Collection Care team and Crown Removals did a superb job in supporting and undertaking the move.

All of the Turnbull Library collections located in the National Library building are now housed in atmosphere-controlled environments.

Developing the Collections

Just over 68,000 items were received into the Turnbull collections for the year. As always, most were published material received through Legal Deposit provisions. This is less than the total for 2010/2011 (94,000 items); however, that year was considered unusual, with the receipt of a large number of electronic monographs.

Highlights from the unpublished acquisitions included the records of the New Zealand Merchant Services Guild Industrial Services Union of Workers. This is a large collection spanning 1900-1990, and includes minutes, correspondence and subject files. The records complement the strong collection of maritime trade union records already held by the Library.

The Turnbull was pleased to conclude negotiations for the purchase of a significant collection of Katherine Mansfield papers held in private hands in the UK. Manuscripts Curator David Colquhoun deserves mention for his persistence in acquiring this material. More detail on this acquisition and its arrangement and description will be included in next year's annual report.

There were a number of milestones within the Library's 'born-digital' collecting activities. The Digital Collection Strategy Team, led by Mark Crookston, developed the capability to archive online video as well as Twitter and Gmail-based email accounts. Web harvesting activities continued with the ingest of websites and blogs, including those covering major events such as the Canterbury earthquakes, the Rena container-ship incident, the Rugby World Cup and the general election.

In the wake of the Canterbury earthquakes, the Library commissioned Ross Becker to undertake a series of monthly photographic assignments documenting the damage, demolition and ongoing changes to the built environment. By June 2012, the Library had received approximately 8,000 digital images. These have been made freely available on the internet.

Making the Collections Accessible

Reading room services The Research Enquiry Team spent much of the year preparing for the return to the Molesworth St building and implementing the new research services model. This included reviewing reading room reference collections, refining floor layouts, updating operational policies and procedures, and developing staff training plans.

Over 32,000 visits were made to reading rooms located at Thorndon Quay and Archives New Zealand. The service fielded approximately 22,000 enquiries.

Online catalogue records

Creating online catalogue records for the Rare Books and Fine Print collection was practically completed during the year, with the addition of nearly 4,000 titles. This work is done for the Turnbull by the National Library's Content Services directorate, working closely with the Curator, Rare Books & Fine Printing, Ruth Lightbourne.

Arrangement and description

An Arrangement and Description Team was established in July 2011 under the leadership of Nicola Frean. The Team is responsible for arranging and describing unpublished items across all formats. All team members received some training across formats, while maintaining the core business of processing new accessions and enhancing collection records. Over 22,000 new records were created for unpublished collection items.

Digitisation

The Turnbull Library's Imaging Services Team, led by David Adams, produced some excellent results with the in-house digitisation programmes. Some 2,436 items were digitised during the year across all collection paper and painting formats, yielding a total of 37,766 images/pages. This represents a 61% increase in images/ pages on the previous year.

Papers of the Selwyn family were among the items digitised. Purchased in England in 2010, their export clearance was granted on the condition that they be digitised as soon as possible and made available online. The papers include letters, diaries and other documents of Bishop George Augustus Selwyn and his wife Sara, as well as papers of their son, John Richardson Selwyn, Bishop of Melanesia.

Following on from the Selwyn papers, the Library undertook a project to digitise selected manuscripts. These included 50 Elsdon Best notebooks, comprising his carefully compiled notes on Maori history and traditions, much of which never found its way into his publications.

A number of James Cowan notebooks were also digitised, some of which contain notes made as part of his oral history research into the New Zealand wars.

The Library's mass-digitisation programme, Pictures Online, came to an end in June 2012. Over the course of the project more than 160,000 images were digitised. The focus for 2011/2012 was to ingest the material into the Library's digital preservation system, the NDHA and provide online records for each image. At the project's conclusion, just over 4,000 images remained to be catalogued. These will be dealt with over the coming year as part of usual business.

Collection loans

Loans to other exhibiting institutions were again low, as expected, as the majority of the collections were still in closed storage during the year. A small number were accommodated. These included the loan of a Katherine Mansfield letter to the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace, the diary of Mita Karaka to Te Papa Taongarewa for the Tai Timu, Tai Pari Tainui exhibition, four items to the lan Potter Centre in Victoria, Australia, for a Eugene von Guerard exhibition, and one item to the State Library of New South Wales and National Library of Australia for the touring exhibition, Lewin: Wild Art. An existing loan of two paintings to the Auckland Art Gallery was extended. 1

Other Activities and Highlights

The training activities of the Oral History Centre became a core service of the Library's newly established Outreach Team, led by Joan McCracken. Oral history training was offered through 11 workshops held in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Gisborne and Masterton.

The position of Heritage Programme Adviser, Maori, was created within the Outreach Team, and is based at the National Library's centre in Auckland. The position is expected to promote the Turnbull's collections and services to Maori, and develop relationships with iwi and Maori in the northern region. Mereana Taungapeau was appointed to the role in January 2012.

The Library's Oral History Adviser, Maori, Taina McGregor, was seconded to the Ministry for Culture and Heritage for one month over May/June 2012 to work on the 28th Maori Battalion website. Her work focused on translating the unit's war diaries of March 1941 and May 1942.

In January 2012, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the New Zealand Cartoon Archive, former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer launched the monograph, A Cartoon War, by Sarah Murray. This was the first in a programme of events celebrating the Archive's anniversary year. Another was the Turnbull Founder Lecture delivered in June 2012 by lan F. Grant, the founder of the Archive.

Organisational Changes

The Turnbull Library's new staffing structure came into effect in July 2011. Existing leadership team members Ruth MacEachern, Associate Chief Librarian, Research Access, and Ann O'Rorke, Assistant Chief Librarian, were joined by the following new appointees: Peter Whitehead, Leader Collection Care; John Sullivan, Leader Curatorial Services; Nicola Frean, Leader Arrangement & Description; Mark Crookston, Leader Digital Collection Strategy; Glenda Gale, Leader Reading Room Services; Amy Watling, Leader Online Services; David Adams, Leader Imaging Services; and Joan McCracken, Leader Outreach Services.

Tracy Puklowski joined the Turnbull in February 2012 as Associate Chief Librarian, Research Collections. Newly appointed curators were Fiona Oliver (New Zealand & Pacific Publications), Shay Turnbull (Cartographic Collection), Natalie Marshall (Photographic Archive), Roger Flury (Music) and Paul Diamond (Maori).

Concluding Comments

The 2011/2012 year was a time of adjustment, transition, planning and development, underpinned by physical and organisational change. Much of the year's successes are attributable to the ongoing dedication and effort of Turnbull staff, supported by colleagues from across the National Library along with new colleagues in a wider departmental context. Thanks are also due to the Friends of the Turnbull Library for their continuing encouragement and support.

ENDNOTES 1 The Rev Thomas Kendall and the Maori Chiefs Hongl and Waikato, 1820 by James Barry, and Meeting of the Artist and Hongi at the Bay of Islands, 1827 by Augustus Earle. The paintings are part of an exhibition of historical New Zealand art marking the reopening of the Auckland Art Gallery.