University of Canterbury Library’s Tokyo War Crimes archive receives international recognition

The Tokyo War Crimes Trial Collection held in the Macmillan  Brown Library, University of Canterbury has been inscribed on the regional register of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme.  The collection is the first item from New Zealand  to receive this recognition on the Asia Pacific Register. Two items from NZ appear on the international register -  the Treaty of Waitangi and the Women’s Suffrage Petition.  The objectives of the MOW Programme are to facilitate preservation, access and awareness of the world’s documentary heritage.  Says Macmillan Brown Library Manager, Jill Durney, “Its international, regional and national registers recognise and draw attention to outstanding items of documentary heritage through a rigorous nomination process.”

The Tokyo War Crimes Trial collection – the Pacific’s equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials – contains almost 380 volumes and nearly 110,000 pages from the trial of Japanese war criminals held between April 1946 and November 1948. After the trial ended Justice Erima Harvey Northcroft, New Zealand’s representative on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), donated his nearly complete set of trial documents to the then University of Canterbury College.  The value of this gift has risen exponentially, as other copies of the material have dwindled, disintegrated and been lost over the ensuing years.

A proposal is currently being developed to digitally preserve the collection, a collaboration with the newly established UC Humanities Computing Unit.

Read the interview in the  University of Canterbury News or view the register

Find out more about the Tokyo War Crimes Trial Collection, and browse the inventory.

 

Banks’ Florilegium on display

Plate 432, Clianthus puniceus, Banks' Florilegium, reproduced courtesy of Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

As part of the Christchurch Festival of Flowers, Macmillan Brown Library has provided a rare opportunity to view Banks’ Florilegium.  This magnificent set of prints  come from the copperplate engravings of plants collected by Joseph Banks on Captain Cook’s Endeavour voyage.  were donated to the  University of Canterbury by the late artist William Sutton and are part of the Macmillan Brown Library collection .

The 2009 Festival of Flowers, in partnership with the Canterbury Museum, will provide a rare opportunity to view a selection of copperplate engravings of plants collected by Joseph Banks on Captain James Cook’s 1769-1771 voyage on the H.M.S. Endeavour. The copperplate engravings, usually held at the Macmillan Brown Library at the University of Canterbury, were gifted to the library by painter William Sutton.

The 20th Anniversary of the Festival of Flowers will be the first time Set 6 of 100 has been publicly exhibited. The exhibition will also feature Landcare Research’s oldest plant samples collected by Banks and Solander during Captain Cook’s first voyage.

Banks’ Florilegium, curated by Melinda Johnston, will provide locals and visitors to the city an opportunity to delve further into the method, botanical accuracy and history of the Florilegium collection in the one-of-a-kind surroundings of the Robert McDougall Gallery at the Canterbury Museum. The Gallery will also be the venue for lectures provided by UC Community Education on a range of topics related to the exhibition.