Digitisation plans
Digitisation Plan 2019–2022
The digitisation plan 2019–2022 sets out the National Library’s priorities for digitisation over the next three years.
We aim to update the digitisation plan annually in August.
Definition of digitisation
Digitisation is defined as the end-to-end process that transfers analogue materials to a digital format. Born-digital objects are not with this plan’s scope.
Strategic context
The Library's strategic plan ‘Te Huri Mōhiotanga hei uara — ngā tohutohu rautaki ki 2030 — Turning Knowledge into Value – Strategic Directions to 2030’ was published in December 2016 following stakeholder and staff consultation.
The mission states that:
the National Library will create cultural and economic value for New Zealanders through leadership and collaboration. We will remove barriers to knowledge, ensure New Zealanders have the skills to create knowledge and preserve knowledge for future generations.
There are three themes within the Strategic Directions:
- taonga
- knowledge, and
- reading.
Within the knowledge theme, we say that “all physical knowledge resources important to New Zealanders will be digitised by 2030”.
The digitisation plan 2019-2022 begins moving the Library towards that aspiration.
Guiding principles
The following principles will guide the development and delivery of the digitisation programme:
- customer-driven
- work in collaboration
- efficient and effective systems and processes.
- we view digitisation as a process that starts at selection and includes long-term preservation, delivery and use.
Goals for 2019–2022
The digitisation plan has four goals.
- Build digitised collections for enhanced access and use.
- Increase capability to digitise at scale.
- Make more te reo Māori resources readily available.
- Measure the impact of digitisation.
Specifically, in 2019-2020 we will:
- continue, by working with our partners, to digitise newspapers and periodicals for Papers Past
- continue to digitise for preservation, including audio-visual material
- begin digitising items listed in Books in Māori, 1815-1900: an annotated bibliography — Nga tanga reo Māori: nga kohikohinga me ona whakamarama
Download the digitisation plan 2019–2022
Download the complete digitisation plan for 2019–2022 (pdf, 965KB)
Previous National Library digitisation plans
National Library digitisation strategy 2014–2017 (pdf, 1.3MB) — definitions, goals, processes that guided the Library’s digitisation activity 2014–2017.
Related content
Collection use and reuse policy
Find out about the use and reuse of collection items from the National Library and the Alexander Turnbull Library.Collections policy
Read our Collections Policy and collecting plans. The Collections Policy provides a set of principles which inform the Library’s collecting activities, and are outlined further in the collecting plans for the various collecting areas in the Library.Preservation policy
Read the preservation policy we use for the preservation and protection of the collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library in perpetuity, and our other collections.