A new publication by the South Canterbury Museum seems to be taking the local South Canterbury market by storm, with over 1100 copies sold only six weeks following its launch.

Originally published in 1975, the late Jack Hamilton’s text was well due for updating. The original text featured approximately 250 entries with only a few illustrations. The present Streets of Timaru contains over 450 entries and is lavishly illustrated with over 250 images, maps and drawings drawn from the South Canterbury Museum’s photographic and documentary history collections. The book offers numerous insights into Timaru’s history that will appeal to residents, genealogists and historians for many years to come.

The story of Timaru’s streets is one of constant growth and change. It starts with ‘Government Town’ being surveyed in 1856 and the Borough of Timaru being formed in 1868. In the years that followed a succession of new suburbs and their streets have followed as growth reached out into the surrounding countryside. This book explores the origins and stories that lie behind these street names, as well as the changes that have been made – such as the renaming of three of Timaru’s four William Streets to avoid confusion.

Praise has been overwhelmingly positive, including one person who wrote that “ … you forewarned me that ‘The Streets of Timaru’ would astonish me, so I had high expectations. I have been trying to think of a word which means ‘exceeded expectations’, but haven’t found one yet.”

The book is available from the South Canterbury Museum for $39.99 plus $7 P&P. Orders should be placed promptly as stock is rapidly diminishing!

Publication details:
Author: Hamilton, Jack & Keith Bartholomew
Title: Streets of Timaru
Publisher: South Canterbury Museum
Pub. date: 2011
RRP: $39.99
Contacts: South Canterbury Museum
PO Box 522
Timaru 7940
museum@timdc.govt.nz
Ph (03) 6877212

Tony Rippin
Curator of Documentary History
South Canterbury Museum
Timaru District Council

Conservation for archival collections

This National Services Te Paerangi workshop is for museum and gallery professionals who have some experience in the museum sector and will assist museum staff and volunteers to understand the basics of conservation for archival collections.

Canterbury:

Ceismic Room, Canterbury University, Christchurch

Saturday 17 December 2011, 9.00am – 4.00pm

 This will cover:

• Discussion about archival collections
• Inspecting documents
• Materials to use
• Methods of humidification
• Demonstrations and hands on experience with cleaning and repair of paper

Who will I meet?     

• Lynn Campbell, a Fine Art paper conservator who works in Christchurch.  Lynn has worked at the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh and tutored on the M.A. conservation course at Northumbria University. Lynn has also worked in Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar, East Africa and was one of the first conservators to go to Antarctica to travel to and work on the historic huts in the Ross Dependency as part of the New Zealand Antarctic programme.  After arriving in 1986 to work at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery conserving works on paper Lynn soon realized that there was a need for more preventive conservation protocols and procedures to inhibit deterioration to many collections in New Zealand. In 1987 she started the Canterbury Disaster Salvage Team to help cultural institutions out in the event of a disaster.

• You will also meet other museum personnel in your region – a great networking opportunity!

Who is it for?

This is an intermediate level workshop which gives representatives from small museums, art galleries, heritage organisations, the arts and cultural sector, iwi organisations the opportunity to learn and ask more about collection care.

 How do I sign up?

• Please contact Sally August at Te Papa – National Services Te Paerangi Sally.August@tepapa.govt.nz or Freephone: 0508 NSTP HELP (0508 678 743)

Please register by Monday 12 December 2012

• The cost of this workshop is $20 to be paid on the day.

 What else do I need to know?

• Bring a pen and paper to take notes
• Bring your lunch (morning and afternoon tea will be provided)
• Bring some damaged (torn and dirty) articles to work on
• Please be aware that your photo may be taken during the workshop, and photos may be used for National Services Te Paerangi purposes.

PDF:  Workshop – Conservation for Archival Collections

Macmillan Brown Library
Fully operational – see website for access details

Canterbury Museum
The stacks are damaged and closed, and the Documentary Research Centre is closed until further notice.

Sound Archives
The collection has been retrieved and is in temporary accommodation.
Access to the digital collection is available.

Anglican Diocesan Archives
Records and collections have been retrieved from their Hereford St site and are in storage – but are not available to the public at present.

Christ’s College archives
Available – Tuesday and Thursday – please ring for an appointment.

Christchurch City Council Archives
Closed until further notice. Whilst there was no damage to the facility where the archives are stored, or to the archives themselves, the area has been reallocated for Civil Defence purposes.  More information.

Air Force Museum, Wigram
Presently providing storage to a large number of community collections. Access to their Research Collection as normal

Art Gallery library and archive
Closed until further notice.

Christchurch City Libraries
Online databases including ancestry.com and findmypast are accessible at all libraries but the Archives collection and Central Library research collections are not yet available.
See Christchurch City Libraries – News  for the latest information on which libraries are open.

Sumner Museum archives
Currently stored in a container until such time as we can get a pre-fab or room in the district.

The Ngāi Tahu Archives
Archives based at Macmillan Brown are accessible (as per the Macmillan Brown statement).
The Ngāi Tahu Archives that are based with Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu are not accessible at the moment.

Upcoming event:

Records & Archives Week, May 1-7, 2012

Scandalous 2012 RAW in the offing

Winston Peters had a wine box full of it. The Hitler Diaries were it. Rupert Murdoch’s Sun was riddled with it – scandal, which is the theme for next year’s Records and Archives week. Scandal is delicious – it runs the gamut from the salacious, to the naughty, through to the secretive, covers the brazen and can sometimes be world-changing. The scandal theme is broad, engaging and fun, and is sure to reveal the darker and more mischievous side of archivists and their holdings up and down the country. So, get your thinking caps on and begin exploring this rich vein of intrigue in preparation for RAW 2012.

I have run workshops and seminars on the care and preservation of documentary heritage and more recently have been called on to give advice to Canterbury institutions trying to retrieve collections and to individuals on the best approach to preserving their precious items.

Previous to this role I worked for 10-years at Te Papa as a paper conservator and in that role undertook preservation workshop with Te Papa National Services Te Paerangi (NSTP) and

While the Canterbury region has experienced conservators who are more familiar than me with the issues affecting institutions as a result of the earthquakes I am happy to be contacted by phone or email regarding any preservation questions or issues

Currently the NPO has range of ‘Care of …’ leaflets:  Family collections, photographs, books and artworks that are available to be sent to institutions and individuals.

For more information contact Vicki-Anne Heikell
by phone: (04) 474-3066
or email:  National.PreservationOffice@dia.govt.nz

• National Library New Zealand
• New Zealand Conservators of Cultural Materials

The nominations to the New Zealand register close on Tuesday 15 November 2011.

New inscriptions to the register will be decided by Monday 28 November and an announcement made on the successful inscriptions.

A successful nomination will raise the profile of your institution and the work that you do to preserve documentary heritage.

 What is Memory of the World?

UNESCO launched the Memory of the World programme in 1992 to guard against collective loss of awareness of documentary heritage. Memory of the World aims to recognise significant documentary heritage in a similar fashion to the way UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention and World Heritage List recognises significant natural and cultural sites.

Countries may develop their own national registers. The most significant items can also be nominated for inscription on the international or regional Memory of the World Registers.

 What is happening in New Zealand?

The New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO supports the Aotearoa/New Zealand Memory of the World Committee / Te Komiti o Aotearoa mo Nga Mahara o te Ao to coordinate nominations for the register of New Zealand documentary heritage. The first inscriptions to the Aotearoa/New Zealand register were announced on 30 June 2011.

Two collections of documentary heritage were inscribed on the New Zealand register in June 2011. The nomination forms for these collections are on the website www.unescomow.org.nz and provide an exemplar for submissions.

What can be nominated?

To be selected for registration on the New Zealand Memory of the World Register the documentary heritage should:

•  be unique and irreplaceable (in that it has demonstrable historic, aesthetic or cultural significance to a community or the nation)
• be a primary or significant source that documents an historical or cultural event that has had a lasting impact and influenced the course of New Zealand history
• be an outstanding example of a document or an  experience

Documentary heritage can be digital or analogue. Examples include but are not limited to textual items such as documents, manuscripts, books, newspapers, posters and non-textual items such as photographs, films, discs, drawings, prints, maps; online media items, social media databases, mobile digital devices etc

Enquiries

For enquiries or more information, please visit unescomow.org.nz , or contact us at enquiries@unescomow.org.nz. If you would like to receive further information about the New Zealand Memory of the World Register, please email enquiries@unescomow.org.nz.with a request to subscribe.

Jill Durney
Macmillan Brown Library Manager
University of Canterbury – Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha

After 7 months of worrying about how the Archives Collection had fared, on 5 October, clad in safety helmet and high-vis vest, I finally gained access to the Methodist Archives Collection Store in our building at 25 Latimer Square.  At last I could see for myself what state the collection was in.

 To cut a long story short, it looks like the Methodist Archives will be closed for the foreseeable future. We have been told by our engineer that 25 Latimer Square is sound and safe, but the building needs repair.

 I could see immediately that the bank of mobile shelving which contains the collection was badly damaged and will need to be replaced.  Shelves have collapsed from their fittings within the rows.  We do not have lockable units, so each row moved round with the shaking, and one has jumped off the tracks.

 The building is still within the CBD Red Zone cordon, (plus no electricity or water is connected to the building), so we are still waiting for this restriction to change before any real progress can be made.  Once this happens we will be able to more easily access our building and with electric light, be able to assess the situation better.  Let’s hope that when the Red Zone cordon is reduced at Christmas, that will include us.

 Because we can’t safely move the mobile shelving, I could not tell how much damage has occurred to the majority of the archives; but I picked up all the boxes of the floor in the aisle which were in a waist high heap – there was some crushing of contents due to boxes falling on top of boxes. 

 No signs of water damage and the collection is securely locked up within the building.  I am reasonably optimistic that the majority of the Archives Collection is undamaged, and if this is the case, it will because of the massive effort the volunteer team has put into boxing the collection over the last 5 years.

 One worrying sight was silverfish scuttling away in the torchlight, so pest control will also be on the agenda.

In the meantime, the Archives volunteer team is continuing with our work at our temporary premises at 1 Maydell Street, on a variety of research, indexing and typing projects which do not require the collection. 

 Contact Jo Smith, email archives@methodist.org.nz

To celebrate the rich heritage of this river town, Kaiapoi Heritage Week provides a feast of events for visitors (Christchurch is just 20 minutes’ drive from Kaiapoi) as well as the local community.

Join in the fun and add to the atmosphere by being dressed in period costume. Be a gentleman of distinction, a lady of wealth or a simple colonial settler!

Kaiapoi Promotions Association and Real NZ presents Kaiapoi Heritage Weekend

The archive recovery operation is part of a larger Radio New Zealand plan called the Christchurch Earthquake – Business Continuity Recovery Plan. Many people in Wellington have been involved behind the scenes to help reinstate our normal operations and cover New Zealand’s biggest news story in recent times.

As well as recovering the archive we retrieved other Radio New Zealand Christchurch equipment and personal items. Our new Cashel Street archive is stacked with grey security crates and pallets of boxes. Most of our equipment is stored nearby in the lock-up space. We have air-conditioning installed in the new space and are keeping a close watch on temperature and humidity as well as other potential hazards.

During the February post quake lock-down, there was a risk of water entering the archive and a potential mould outbreak. Despite the obvious building damage and loss of flashing on the west wall, there were no leaks. This autumn and winter have been exceptionally dry and mild and we were lucky there were no wet southerlies.

So we had sufficient time to plan the recovery, though there were many variables to juggle and we were never completely sure when we would be allowed in. The recovery plan is also a long term storage solution. We are using polypropylene security crates and have ordered industrial strength shelving for the new archive. Needless to say, earthquake bracing and restraint are being incorporated into the new space.

The risk assessment for the health and safety plan was an interesting exercise. Though not particularly scientific, the greatest risk factors that could not be eliminated, minimized or isolated were “emotional stress” and more earthquakes. This was reassuring because despite the damage, the building itself was safe and stress is something we talk about regularly these days in Christchurch. The most stressful part was waiting to get in. Once we were there we soon settled into a fairly brisk, but not hurried routine.

As for more earthquakes, yet again the old leviathan would have the last word. On Monday the 13th of June at 1.01 pm, from across the road, I watched the front of the building flex and ripple, as Tony, Robyn and Nathan ran from the barbecue under the drive-through. Nick Guy and Matthew O’Sullivan were in the archive and Doug and I met them on their way out, a little shaken but O.K. At this point we decided not to re-enter the building. After hearing the quake was centred near Taylor’s Mistake, I headed home to Heathcote Valley to clean up the inevitable mess, before the inevitable post quake traffic-jam. I had just mopped up the last of the milk and broken glass when I held the bench and watched everything not screwed to the walls fall down again: phew! – another big one.

The June the 13th quake meant we were locked out for another week until our engineer cleared the building. There was little, if any, more external damage, though inside we noted more broken windows, cracks in gib and lifting carpet tiles. Good thing we weren’t working on the last disc row, as two of the units toppled, spilling a thousand or more “acetates” on the floor. The final phase took another two and a half days.

Among the recovery crew were ex-RNZ operator, Phil Swallow, who took time out from building work to pitch in. National Library archivist, Nick Guy, brought a cool systematic approach. Timaru’s Museum’s Tony Rippen brought his steel capped boots curator’s packing finesse and Matthew O’Sullivan of the Air force Museum brought his rather large pro-format camera and a highly energetic approach to dealing with collapsed shelving.

Jump movers turned out to be a great little family firm who really took our special archival concerns on board as well as cooking a tasty lunch-time burger. The team work was superb with everyone pitching in and things happened a lot quicker than we expected.

Marie O’Connell and me have a very large sorting job ahead and we are looking forward to this opportunity to create more archival order out of the quake chaos. Its also an opportunity to significantly improve the storage and accessibility of the collection.

I wish to thank all those involved in the project. Big thanks to: Karen Neill (team support and permissions), Trudi Jarvis (safety watch), Marie O’Connell (safety watch), Robyn Crocker (Jump – safety watch) Nathan Crocker (Jump), Tony Crocker (Jump), Doug Dee (Jump), Paul Allerby (Jump) Darian Keane (Jump), Terry Klenner (Jump), Nick Calvert (engineer), Lynn Campbell (Christchurch City Art Gallery – Disaster Recovery Network) and Ian Johnson (driver). Extra special thanks to Wayne Jarvis (technical taonga) who put in many long hours and days away from home.

John Kelcher
Sound Archivist
Radio New Zealand Christchurch