Poumanaaki update on Digitisation

13 May 2024

As a follow up to my initial statement announcing the closure of Te Maeatanga Digitisation programme, I want to reaffirm Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga Archives New Zealand’s commitment to ensuring people can easily access the important information and taonga we hold.

The Digitisation programme has operated on time-limited funding since its inception. Despite best efforts, we have been unsuccessful in securing ongoing funding. The programme must therefore come to a close.

The closure of the Digitisation programme means digitisation will stop at all four Te Rua Mahara sites (Tāmaki Auckland, Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Ōtautahi Christchurch and Ōtepoti Dunedin). This includes Digitisation on demand.

You will appreciate the current financial environment is challenging, and Te Rua Mahara acknowledges the impacts the Digitisation programme closure will have to services it currently provides.

The process of digitising records includes the creation of a digital intangible asset. Following current accounting treatment, the creation of these assets must be funded by capital investment.

Digitisation has been a core part of our programme of work in recent years and Te Rua Mahara will continue to look for other avenues of funding to bring Digitisation back online in the future.

Te Rua Mahara continues to facilitate access to archives as required under the Public Records Act 2005. Our holdings remain accessible to members of the public in our reading rooms located in Tāmaki Auckland, Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Ōtautahi Christchurch and Ōtepoti Dunedin.

Almost two million images of significance to Aotearoa New Zealand have been digitised. You can access this existing digitised content online through our Collections search website.

Open access records that have not already been digitised can be accessed in the reading room of the office where the record is located.

Read more information about visiting our reading rooms.

Te Rua Mahara does not currently have any plans to extend its reading room hours. In 2020, Te Rua Mahara ran a pilot of reduced reading room hours and subsequently rolled out changes across the motu. Reducing reading room hours enabled Te Rua Mahara to redirect some resources to support digitisation; however, that was not the only reason we reduced our reading room hours.

Over the past several years we have seen a steady decrease in the number of people who visit our reading rooms. Our current reading room hours provide a balance between public access to reading rooms and allowing kaimahi to undertake other important work, including listing, indexing and descriptive work to make our holdings more accessible to all.

Te Rua Mahara is working closely with the National Library and Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision to identify opportunities to improve services to customers and share resources.

This is a challenging time, and we acknowledge the feedback we have received from the public, both direct and indirect.