On the 28th of February we held a very successful ‘Active Archives’ event in conjunction with the regional branches of National Digital Forum (NDF) and the Archives & Records Association of NZ (ARANZ). With a group of around 50 people we came from all parts of the GLAM sector and included participants from local and central government, tertiary and secondary education, volunteer groups, museums, and the private sector. It was a wonderful chance to hear some truly interesting presentations, engage with the Canterbury Disaster Salvage Team, network with each other and have a moment to think outside of our everyday boxes!
The day began with presentations by Canterbury Disaster Salvage Team (CDST) members Joanna Condon (Archives NZ), Lydia Baxendell (University of Canterbury) and retiring member Lynn Campbell. It was a good chance to reflect on the work of the CDST since it began in the 1980’s and to gather feedback from our community as the team moves into the future. As well as the survey results (sent to Cantage members a few weeks ago) we broke into workshop groups and ran through a series of disaster related questions and brainstorming on what support our community would like to see from the CDST group in coming days.
The CDST also presented founding member and conservator Lynn Campbell with a special trophy and flowers to thank her for all of her hard work over her years. Many of our institutions have benefited from her help and guidance.
Left to right: CDST members Joanna Condon, Lynn Campbell, Julie Sowby, Lydia Baxendell.
After lunch we reflected on the UNESCO Memory of the World project – presented by Caroline Etherington and Jo Condon from Archives NZ and Erin Kimber, from University of Canterbury. They shared recent Canterbury nominations, inscriptions to the register from their own institutions and their experience of the process. The Canterbury Provincial Government papers inscribed on the register were shared in an earlier Cantage blog post but further details of all collections on the NZ register, including the three held by the Macmillan Library (Armson Collins architectural drawings, Tokyo War Crimes collection and Ursula Bethall collection) can be seen at: https://unescomow.nz/new-zealand-register
The afternoon continued with a discussion on the ethics of the colourisation of black & white photos led by Matthew O’Sullican (Keeper of Photographs, Air Force Museum of New Zealand). The conversation raised all kinds of questions and gave lots of food for thought around not only colourisation but the rise of AI, copyright and how we will deal with collection challenges of the future.
The last session of the day was led by Jonathan Hunt from Catalyst on Linked Data. This included an exercise where we broke into groups and managed to successfully publish some linked data ourselves on NZ artists. It was a technical exercise that pulled some of us out of our comfort zone but again allowed us to broaden our thinking on different aspects of access and metadata outside of our day to day experiences.
Thanks to everyone who helped organise this joint event (Helen Thomas and Matthew O’Sullivan from NDF, Evan Greensides from ARANZ and Joanna Condon from Archives NZ), to the Cantage committee for helping on the day and to all of our presenters. Keep an eye out for our next event and come and join us!
Cantage and 
Cantage - Canterbury Heritage 