Updates from DigitalNZ
Content wrap-up: April–July 2015
Posted on 01 July 2015 by Ting
Over the last few months we have welcomed more great content partners to DigitalNZ. We now have a total of 186 content partners with over 29 million searchable items on www.digitalnz.org. This quarter we were really excited to work with a number of New Zealand museums, a family collection of WW1 photographs, a major international partner, and we have also brought in additional collections from existing content partners.
Content wrap-up: Jan–March 2015
Posted on 07 April 2015 by Thomasin
What’s new on DigitalNZ? Well, we’re glad you asked. This year we thought we’d post a quarterly content wrap-up to let you know what excellent new collections we’ve been working with and what new content you can find on DigitalNZ.
New content in the first quarter of 2015 was varied: videos, research papers, data, and artwork.
It’s not every day we are approached to harvest content entitled ‘Burlesque Brain’! But we were... Read more
Creative reuse and digital collections
Posted on 13 February 2015 by Thomasin
Here at DigitalNZ we’ve been circling the problem of creative reuse of digital collections for a number of years now. Needless to say, it’s a tricky one.
We’ve run competitions to encourage and celebrate the reuse of openly licensed content: Mix & Mash, and most recently, GIF IT UP, a GIF-making competition we ran with the Digital Public Library of America. Whilst these have been successful and people have made... Read more
Metadata battles
Posted on 17 December 2014 by Thomasin
Here at DigitalNZ we enjoy an end-of-year Christmas list as much as the next person. This year we thought we could turn our data-obsessed eyes towards the metadata of our excellent content partners and compare and contrast their collections.
Who has the most 'cats' in their collection? And who has the most 'Christmas'?
These are serious questions that call for answers!
If you are a bit confused by the word ‘metadata’,... Read more
Emerging Pixels and DigitalNZ
Posted on 29 July 2014 by Thomasin
We’re excited to be collaborating with Digital Art Live on their Emerging Pixels programme this year. Emerging Pixels is a chance for students to develop and deliver an interactive work for the large screen in the Aotea Centre (see the image below). You can check out previous Emerging Pixels works here.
We’re encouraging creative technologies students to use openly licensed content from DigitalNZ in their work, and/or build... Read more
Nips, tucks, and refreshes
Posted on 14 May 2014 by Admin
If you are a regular DigitalNZ visitor, you’ll have noticed a few changes we’ve been rolling out on the site over the last six months or so. We thought it’d be helpful to let you know what we’ve been up to, and also ask for any feedback or thoughts you have about these changes.
Mobile
Firstly, at the end of last year, we worked with our amazing developers Boost New Media and designers Clicksuite, and made www.digitalnz.org mobile... Read more
Q&A with Donna Robertson
Posted on 27 February 2014 by Thomasin
Donna Robertson is a librarian and editor for the amazing Christchurch City Libraries, and a big DigitalNZ fan and set-maker extraordinaire! In fact, we recently ran a search on DigitalNZ for 'Donna Robertson' and it returned 100 sets. This officially makes Donna 'Queen of DigitalNZ sets'.
In the third of our sixth birthday blog series, we had a chat to Donna about what she loves about DigitalNZ, some tips for making... Read more
Q&A with UC CEISMIC
Posted on 19 February 2014 by Thomasin
This Q&A is the second in our collection of sixth birthday celebration interviews. We thought it was a good opportunity to check in with an organisation using the DigitalNZ's data, in particular our Application Programming Interface (API)*, so we had a chat with UC CEISMIC, a digital repository of information relating to the Christchurch earthquakes.
UC Ceismic project.
How did UC CEISMIC come to work with the DigitalNZ API?
Q&A with V.C. Browne
Posted on 14 February 2014 by Thomasin
DigitalNZ is turning six years old this February! As part of our birthday celebrations, we decided it was high time we had a chat with some of our amazing content partners, fans, and people using the DigitalNZ API.
We were keen to get their thoughts on DigitalNZ, how they came to work with us, and what they think will be most exciting about DigitalNZ in the future — so, it's a good excuse for warm fuzzies all round.
Colin McCahon | McCahon, Colin | McCahon, Colin John, 1919-1987
Posted on 17 December 2013 by Thomasin
On November 26 I presented a talk on linked data and entity reconciliation at the National Digital Forum held at Te Papa in Wellington. These are my speaker's notes.
Linked data is an amazing yet elusive idea. It extends the conventional Web by providing a means to identify and refer to specific entities or concepts and supplies a way to describe how those things are related. Together, the... Read more
Christmas top tens and favourites
Posted on 12 December 2013 by Thomasin
'Tis the season to summarise! There's nothing better than a good ol' Christmas top ten list, right?
Winning athletes on podium during awards ceremony for the six mile event, 1950 British Empire Games, Eden Park, Auckland. Ref: 114/125/34-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.
Let's get right into the top ten, most viewed, sets of 2013:
1. Patched: A History of Gangs in New Zealand takes... Read more
Facebook before Facebook: the Photo News
Posted on 25 September 2013 by Thomasin
Recently, we have been lucky to work with the HB Williams Memorial Library in Gisborne to make the Gisborne Photo News available on DigitalNZ. We are now pointing to 14,190 images of life in Gisborne, taken between 1954 and 1975.
The Photo News was a series of monthly publications produced by the Logan Publishing Group in Gisborne, which at its height was distributing to seven regions around New Zealand. Both Nelson... Read more
Creative people build creative sets
Posted on 18 September 2013 by Thomasin
I recently started working here at DigitalNZ, and quickly discovered my love of set-making. The process is often strange, intuitive and surprising.
Image: Carver, Robert William Ind 1838-1907 :Bell's kitchen garden 1892. Ref: A-164-020. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22748258
DigitalNZ has over 25 million pieces of digital content, so you never quite know what... Read more
Visualising the DigitalNZ metadata ecosystem
Posted on 15 September 2013 by Thomasin
This blog post details an interactive visualisation of DigitalNZ data,which you can experiment with as a Google Fusion Table. Note that by defaultthe visualisation will only show about 150 nodes. Increase the number of nodes to the maximum value to see everything.Read on to learn more.
At the time of... Read more
Reflections on the 2013 Linked Open Data in Libraries Archives and Museums Summit
Posted on 24 July 2013 by Chris
Linked data is an amazing yet elusive idea — elusive for at least two reasons. It can be difficult for people who don't live and breathe linked data to grasp. It also remains difficult for institutions to know where to start in providing linked data views of their collections. At DigitalNZ we have been exploring these issues both internally and with some of our content... Read more
Metadata now available for commercial use
Posted on 10 June 2013 by Fiona
In our latest extension to the DigitalNZ API, we have updated the rights of thousands of metadata* records to allow for commercial use.A treasure trove of over 200,000 records can now be mixed, mashed and mined in anyway you like - be it for commercial, creative or educational purposes. DigitalNZ has millions of records available for reuse, but up until now this has been limited to non-commercial use only.Five... Read more
Puke Ariki – Heritage ‘Taranaki Style’
Posted on 10 June 2013 by Ting
Puke Ariki is an innovative museum, library and information centre that combines learning, knowledge, resources and heritage objects for a visitor experience that is like no other. Situated in New Plymouth between Mount Taranaki and thee Tasman Sea, visitors can connect with the stories of the region’s past, present and future.
Mount Taranaki by James Walter Chapman Taylor, 24 June 1878, from Puke Ariki.
It’s also... Read more
Digital Discovery Day
Posted on 12 April 2013 by Admin
Today 50 NewZealandeducators have flocked to the new National Library building in Wellington for Digital Discovery Day. The National Library Services to Schools team are hosting ourvisitorsfor workshops, discussion and presentations on 21st centuryliteracyand the use of digital resources in the classroom.
Our DigitalNZ session looked at the 'information age', 'digitalliteracy', and how DigitalNZ works. We also had a... Read more
V.C. Browne and Son
Posted on 03 April 2013 by Ting
The V.C. Browne and Son collection is one of the largest New Zealand historical aerial photograph collections available online. Currently there are almost 30,000 photographs that are available through DigitalNZ, and more than 4,000records are free for reuse as there isno known copyright restrictions.
In 2009, Roger Barclay, the grand son-in-law of V.C. Browne contacted us with this unique photograph collection. We were thrilled with... Read more
QuakeStudies is live on CEISMIC
Posted on 02 April 2013 by Thomasin
After thedevastatingChristchurch Earthquake in 2011, the University of Canterbury and its consortium partners set up the UC Canterbury Earthquake Digital Archive to preserve photos, videos, documents and audio files relating to thedisasterand the subsequent rebuild of the city.
Deconstruction of the Crown Plaza Hotel,availableon QuakeStudies from Jared Cantlon (CC BY-NC).
The UC CEISMIC website is a federated discovery... Read more