Help digitise New Zealand’s news history

Help digitise New Zealand’s news history

The National Library is inviting groups and individuals from throughout New Zealand to apply to have their historic newspapers digitised and made available online on the Papers Past website (www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz) through the 2015 edition of the Library’s Collaborative Digitisation Programme.

The Papers Past website (http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz) contains three and a half million digitised pages from ninety three separate New Zealand newspapers and periodicals from 1839 to 1945. Much of this content has come from the digitisation and selection programmes of the National Library, but an increasing amount is nominated and part-funded by external groups and individuals through the collaborative programme. This has introduced additional content from a wider range of places, which means more of New Zealand’s news history can be explored online.

Last year, some 80,000 pages across a range of newspapers were put online as a result of the collaborative project. Successful applicants included Gore Historical Museum, Lyall Adamson, Patea Historical Society, Hamilton Libraries, Palmerston North, Nelson Libraries, Waimate Historical Society, Motueka and District Historical Society, Timaru District Libraries, and Hokitika Historical Society.

“New Zealand has produced over 1500 different newspaper titles since the 19th century, and so far we’ve only digitised about six per cent of them. There’s so much forgotten history out there waiting to be scanned and put online, and we want to make sure that people have a fair opportunity to be involved,” says Collaborative Digitisation Manager Greig Roulston.

This year, the National Library will share the cost of digitising a further 80,000 pages and is inviting applicants to apply by 3 July 2015, via theNational Library of New Zealand website (http://natlib.govt.nz/librarians/national-library-services/collaborative-digitisation)

The National Library sits within the Information and Knowledge Services Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs.

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