(1) Introduction

This article provides information on collaboration between the National Library and other organisations, and focuses on a number of specific initiatives. It also considers how the National Library's services take into account the interests of the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand.
The National Library is a government department, and its purpose was recently redefined by Parliament in the 'National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa *) Act' 2003, as follows:
"The purpose of the National Library is to enrich the cultural and economic life of New Zealand and its interchanges with other nations by, as appropriate,

1. collecting, preserving and protecting documents, particularly those relating to New Zealand, and making them accessible for all the people of New Zealand, in a manner consistent with their status as documentary heritage and taonga**; and 
2. supplementing and furthering the work of other libraries in New Zealand; and
3. working collaboratively with other institutions having similar purposes, including those forming part of the international library community."

 

 

*The Māori name of the National Library means "well-spring of knowledge."
** 'Taonga' is a Māori word meaning 'treasure' in English: it refers to tangible and intangible heritage

Digitisation programmes
The Library is actively working on a national Digital Library Strategy, which will be one element within the Government's overall ICT Strategy framework. The strategy identifies the directions to be pursued by the Library and outlines an annual programme of work to ensure implementation.
The success of the strategy is dependent on increasing the capability of staff to meet the digital challenge and on implementing a full range of activities and services related to the provision of digital information. Success will be measured by the extent to which the National Library is able to provide enhanced access to digital information for New Zealanders (and especially to New Zealand content), collect digital resources, ensure their long-term storage and preservation, and provide enhanced access to the Library's collections through digitisation.
To respond successfully to the changing environment, the Library will need to: 

review its allocation of resources and bring about organisational change

collaborate with the wider information community, with regard to all New Zealand information

be more aware of its users' needs particularly in relation to access, social inclusion, education, life-long learning

move from collection-centric to user-centric service provision, e.g. through digitisation and online delivery

ensure it has the technology infrastructure for development and maintenance of new products and services

further emphasise interoperability and standards compliance in the continued development of its technology infrastructure

develop long-term storage, preservation and accessibility strategies for digital material

deliver new products and services, e.g. Virtual Reference services

National Digital Forum
The National Library organised a second National Digital Forum in September 2003 (see: http://www.natlib.govt.nz/en/whatsnew/4initiatives.html#_national_digital_forum) and hopes to organize another such forum later this year in collaboration with Archives New Zealand, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and similar institutions.

A Trusted digital repository
Under the legal deposit provisions of the 2003 Act, Library is mandated to collect New Zealand electronic publications, and required to preserve and maintain them in the long-term, for the purpose of providing New Zealanders with access to their digital heritage collections. 
The National Library recently proposed the establishment of a 'trusted digital repository' in order to fulfil its statutory obligations. A trusted digital repository collects and preserves digital objects, guaranteeing security, authenticity and continuity through changes in technology, and providing access in conformity with the provisions of intellectual property law as it applies to the digital environment***.

***New legislation is currently being prepared to bring the New Zealand Copyright Act 1994 up to date in the digital environment.

Matapihi
The National Library is leading a project to develop a multi-organisation, distributed application called Matapihi ('window' in Māori). This is based on 'Picture Australia' and 'Images Canada' and consists of a centralised metadata repository (Dublin Core Qualified) built in ENCompass, the Library's portal software, with links out to digital objects located within the participating organisations' web sites. For further details, see  http://ndf.natlib.govt.nz/about/matapihi.htm. It is expected that Matapihi will be launched in the second quarter of 2004.

The National Preservation Office
The National Preservation Office, Te Tari Tohu Taonga, is an initiative of the National Library of New Zealand and Archives New Zealand.  It is staffed by two conservators, who provide advice and training opportunities across the cultural heritage sector including iwi and hapu.  They work in collaboration with many institutions to deliver preservation advice on an array of issues. They were recently called on to give advice on recovery of library and archive materials affected by severe floods in large areas of the North Island of New Zealand. They have also provided overseas courses on digitisation for the library and archives sector, notably working with Otago University Library (Dunedin, NZ).  Recently they went to Niue to salvage that country's archives following the devastating cyclone there (see photo).
 

Niue - (left to right) Daphne Pihigia and Amanda Heka, from Niue, and Tharron Bloomfield from the National Preservation Office in Wellington, NZ, cleaning storm-ravaged archives following Tropical Cyclone Heta in 2004

Access to collections by Māori
The idea of 'Tihei mauri ora' (literally 'from my first breath' or 'the breath of life') is a guiding principle of the National Library's work. The Library holds the world's foremost collection of Māori culture in the form of manuscripts, texts, recordings and images. To compile complete records of these materials, and to provide access to them, the Library works in partnership with Māori clients. The Library's access tools to assist clients have been developed in collaboration with local experts knowledgeable about the provenance of the documents. 
The Māori language is an official language of New Zealand. The National Library's bilingual website http://www.natlib.govt.nz, is one of the Library's many contributions to supporting New Zealand's founding document: the Treaty of Waitangi.

Māori Subject Headings Project
A project is underway, managed through a partnership involving Te Rōpū Whakahau (the organisation which unites Māori librarian and information workers in New Zealand), the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa and the National Library, to establish a core Māori Subject Headings list and a Māori Name Authority File. The project will develop guidelines to support the use of these tools by cataloguers, and agree a process and assign responsibility for maintaining and developing the tools and the Guidelines.
Once these tools are developed, the National Library of New Zealand will continue using Library of Congress Subject Headings, but will also add Māori subject headings to New Zealand publications in Māori or to publications in English that are of particular interest to Māori. Other libraries within New Zealand will be free to make their own decision about the way these cataloguing tools will be used in their local libraries. 

Inter-library loan in New Zealand
Inter-library loan, or Interloan as it is known in New Zealand, is administered by the Joint Standing Committee on Interloan. The JSCI is a joint standing committee of the Council of the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA) and the National Library of New Zealand. The role of the JSCI is to monitor needs and the performance of the Interloan Scheme, review policies, regulate the Scheme, report to LIANZA and the National Librarian (the Chief Executive of the National Library), and also provide feedback to the library profession.

School services
The National Library of New Zealand provides a unique model internationally of support and development to school libraries, through its School Services division. The focus of the division's work is ensuring that all schools have the tools to use and manage information effectively to support the teaching of the New Zealand curriculum. School Services provides access to lending collections and reference services and to professional advice and support for schools in developing their own school library and information services. The approach taken has ensured that the National Library is strongly placed at the interface of central government, education and librarianship. Operating at both a national level as a central government agency and at the local level in providing direct services to all schools through its infrastructure of local service centres has provided both challenges and opportunities. Responding to changes in education and libraries has resulted in a developing focus on the provision of online services to schools. These services to support teaching and learning in schools are provided in partnership with other educational agencies and are developed to meet identified needs.

INNZ Online
In what has been a unique collaborative enterprise between the National Library of New Zealand, the Learning Trust, and the Ministry of Education, New Zealand schools are now able to freely access Index New Zealand (INNZ) online. Developed to support teaching and learning, INNZ Online contains abstracts of thousands of articles about New Zealand and the South Pacific. These articles have been published in approximately 300 New Zealand newspapers and magazines, in the fields of humanities, social sciences and 'general interest', mainly since 1987. To access INNZ, New Zealand Schools  must go through Te Kete Ipurangi  (TKI). TKI is an initiative of the New Zealand Ministry of Education. It is a bilingual (Māori and English) portal-plus web community providing quality assured educational resources for teachers, school managers, and the wider education community. 
Students using INNZ can request the articles free from the National Library of New Zealand.  By February 2004, 550 schools had registered for INNZ Online via Te Kete Ipurangi. For more information, see http://www.tki.org.nz/e/tki/innz/ .

Helping young New Zealanders net the Knowledge
Libraries from across New Zealand began a major new project in February 2004: the 'Online Librarian for School Students' Pilot Project. The pilot, which has been generously funded by Sun Microsystems, is a response to the situation where school-aged children searching on the Web find vast amounts of information that may be irrelevant or incorrect. The project aims to complement the work of school libraries and public libraries by developing an online reference service for all New Zealand school students, who will then be able to call up help when and where they need it, and be guided to relevant, high-quality information sources. The project team hope to have the service ready to go live in early 2005.
The partners in the project are the National Library, SLANZA (School Library Association of New Zealand Aotearoa), Auckland, Christchurch, Manukau and Wellington City Libraries, Horowhenua District Library Trust, the Ministry of Education, The Correspondence School and Te Kete Ipurangi Joint Venture.

Electronic Purchasing in Collaboration (EPIC)
During the second half of 2003 the National Library led a team representing the whole New Zealand library sector working on a project to explore the feasibility of a consortium approach to purchasing electronic resources for New Zealand libraries. The aim of the EPIC project was to bring together an optimum package of e-resources for the widest range of libraries. The concept was proved to be feasible and in January 2004 an agreement was signed with EBSCO and Gale Publishers.
All New Zealanders will now have an enormous range of electronic resources at their fingertips, thanks to the generosity of participating public, tertiary, and special libraries from all over the country. 
Primary, intermediate and high schools around the country will also have access to the resources, at no individual cost - the Ministry of Education is funding every school library in New Zealand to be a part of the group for the first year. The e-resources are expected to be launched in March 2004. See:  http://www.perna.org.nz/nl/perna.html

Manukau city project
In October 2003 the National Library signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Manukau City Council (in the Auckland region), formalising a collaborative relationship that will see both organisations working to improve literacy and learning in Manukau City school libraries and public libraries. This was in fact the first time that the National Library had established a formal relationship with a local authority's public library service to support a community.
National Library staff in Auckland have already been working with Manukau City Library staff to trial an information literacy programme for students in Kura Māori, supporting educational achievement, increasing student opportunities to access resources, and building skills.

The National Library collaborates with many other government and non-government partners to advance national planning aiming to make New Zealand into an information society. For example, it continues to be involved with the E-Government Unit in supporting the implementation of the E-Government Strategy (the National Library is particularly involved in the area of metadata development for interoperability), and with various government departments in overseeing the implementation of the 'Connecting Communities' Strategy.
The National Library is also involved in discussions with Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ - representing local authorities) and with MetroNet (an association of the larger metropolitan public libraries) to investigate ways of developing infrastructure and human capacity in public libraries, in the context of e-government, LGNZ's new e-Local Government Strategy and other networking developments.
The National Library is collaborating closely with key departments in drafting a new national ICT Strategy which will provide a cohesive and enabling framework for existing government strategies in a number of sectors. Existing strategies include the National Digital Strategy (mentioned above), and also the Education ICT Strategy:

The Education ICT Strategy
A review of Information and Communication Technologies across the Education sector has provided the National Library with an opportunity to work in collaboration with a number of education agencies and in particular, the Ministry of Education.  The Library's knowledge and understanding of systems and information management has put it in a strong position to provide advice and comment on a range of ICT matters.
The CEO of the Library is the Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee which oversees the progress of the review, and the Library's Electronic Services Director chairs the Education Sector Architectural Framework Working Group.
In addition and as part of this work, the Library is the co-sponsor for the development of a discussion paper entitled 'Interim Tertiary e-learning Framework'. This paper will be the base document providing direction for the development of a pan-sector e-Learning strategy.
 

(5) Conclusion

The National Library is at the forefront of developments in preserving and providing access to New Zealand's cultural heritage in documentary form, and also in providing New Zealanders with access to a wide range of information resources from around the world. 
It supports the work of the library profession, but also, by virtue of its position as a central government Department, it is able to raise 'information society' issues for discussion with other Departments, collaborate with them on specific initiatives, and offer solutions for policy development on a number of all-of-government issues.
 

Note: for further information, contact: information@natlib.govt.nz