Introducing Waimakariri Heritage

Waimakariri Libraries recently launched their new site, Waimakariri Heritage.

This is a  permanent digital archive, which includes books, audio and video files, over 450 images, and an interactive map of the area. This project has been in the works for the past year, and the Waimakariri Libraries team have been working hard to get content onto the platform. 

Image: The Kairaki Camping Ground, 1968.

Waimakariri Heritage is a place to preserve memories and share them with the community. The Waimakariri Libraries team is looking forward to connecting with different groups in the community who want to learn about the area’s history and have memories to share. We are also excited about the potential for students and schools in the area to use the platform as part of the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum and would encourage student contributions. North Canterbury has a unique history, and the site will enhance connections to our past, present and future.

We are adding new stories and collections all the time and you can also contribute your own memories and comments by registering with the website. We would love your help to identify and name people and places in some of the images in the collection. You will also be able to share your stories – this can be a written memory, oral history or photographs of people, places, events etc. We would love to hear about life in the past and life today!

For further information please email library.heritage@wmk.govt.nz or phone (03) 311 8901.

Exploring the past through Canterbury Stories

Are you tired of the present? Want to meander down memory lane? Interested in doing some research? Or perhaps just to remind yourself what Christchurch looked like before the earthquakes.

Canterbury Stories has over 70,000 digital heritage items for you to explore from home! These include photographs, negatives, maps, videos and archival items relating to Canterbury from the 1850s to the 2020s covering a wide variety of topics.

If you find an item that you can provide more information for or memories about, you can do this. You can add comments and stories so that we all know more about what took place. You just need to create an account and be logged in.

You can also create your own mini collection by gathering items in to a set. You can then share the set with friends and family. To do this, you will need to create an account and be logged in. Come up with a name for your set then search or browse the collections or explore the existing sets to gather the items you want. You can create multiple sets and your set can have up to 450 images, so have fun exploring and gathering! See the Canterbury Stories Contribute page for more information on how to create a set.

Gail and Maeve
Digital Content Team
Christchurch City Libraries

View more images on Canterbury Stories

Church Papers Online/Nga Pepa Hahia Ipurangi

Two early Christchurch Church papers are now  available on-line.
The two papers are the Church Quarterly Paper 1861-1866 and the Church Magazine 1876-1878.

Neither are complete, but all that was available in the Diocesan Archives have been digitized. If anyone has copies that could be used to fill in the gaps please contact the archivist

Jane Teal
Archivist
Christ’s College

archivesdiochch@anglicanlife.org.nz

High Street, City Mall, 1980s

From the Christchurch City Archives collection, courtesy Eva.

New from the National Library

Manuscripts and Pictorial collections

The National Library of New Zealand has just released the beta of the digitised Manuscripts and Pictorial collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library, including 100,000 pages from the papers of Sir Donald McLean and more than 70,000 New Zealand and Pacific images. See http://mp.natlib.govt.nz/

Donald McLean (1820–77) was Land Purchase Commissioner and Native Minister.

It is not clear yet but this possibly will replace Timeframes.

Archives New Zealand Christchurch Gallery

The Christchurch office of Archives New Zealand was an early adopter of online exhibitions of some compelling material, of treasures from their collection around the themes of

• Hagley Park
• Past Caring
• The Fabric of Christchurch 1850 – 1880

They have recently added a new bunch of material in their Christchurch Gallery.

They describe it

has been developed to showcase a fraction of the almost 12 kilometres of records held in the Christchurch repository of Archives New Zealand. The Farrago Gallery contains a random miscellany of images and themes, from maps and plans of Godley Head Defence Area to the Surgeon’s Report from the voyage of the Lady Nugent in 1850. It will be added to regularly, so it pays to check back often.

Further galleries will be opened over the coming months, as new themes, topics and items are chosen, digitised and made available.

Currently they have

• Kā puna kōrero o Kāi Tahu
  images of selected public archives held by the Christchurch office of Archives New Zealand relating to Ngāi Tahu communities in Canterbury and Westland.

• Farrago
  This is a gallery of the weird, wonderful or generally interesting items held in the Christchurch repository Includes material relating to the Erebus disaster and inquiry

• The Early Ships
  Documents relating to the early Canterbury Association voyages to Canterbury, New Zealand. 1850-51
  This gallery will eventually contain the extant Canterbury Association papers relating to the first four emigrant ship voyages to the Canterbury Settlement in 1850 – 1851.

Oh and there is a Dunedin office gallery as well, which has a fantastic collection of posters from Railway stations.

My favourite piece of digital work that Archives New Zealand has digitised is the War Art collection – and its not just because you can tag entries but there is something very strong and evocotive about this imagery.

Rutherford lampshades

'Red’ Lamp shade

The University of Canterbury Library has recently digitised and placed online the majority of archival material from, by and about Ernest Rutherford that is held in the Macmillan Brown Library.

Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) is one of the University of Canterbury’s most accomplished alumni. Rutherford became a scientist of immense international stature and in 1908 won the Noble Prize in Chemistry for his investigations into the disintegration of elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances. Rutherford’s work was pivotal in forming the theoretical framework for 20th century nuclear science.

Included in this digital resource are letters written by and to Rutherford, reminiscences of colleagues about Rutherford, a record of Rutherford’s involvement with the Canterbury College Science Society and
copies of Rutherford’s certificates, scrolls and medals.

The collection also includes images of the ‘Rutherford lampshades’ which were crafted from some of Rutherford’s many certificates and awards and later deposited with the University of Canterbury for safekeeping.

View the collection

Any comments and questions can be directed to:
macbrown@libr.canterbury.ac.nz