Utaina — audiovisual digital preservation project
We're working with Archives New Zealand and Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision, as part of the Utaina project, to digitise audio and visual media, preserving them for future generations.
Preserving our audiovisual heritage
The audiovisual sights and sounds of our country are unique to Aotearoa New Zealand. The audiovisual items in our collections include music, oral histories, live recordings of community events, broadcast news and current affairs, documentaries, TV series, films, and more.
Audiovisual items capture the issues and experiences of people through the decades, unique cultural events and defining moments, our environment and scenery, and successes and tragedies over the last century. We can look through this window to the past to enjoy, remember and guide our future.
Digitisation of this material, particularly our large holdings in Oral History and Sound collection and the Archive of New Zealand Music mean that the voices, stories, music and creative output of Aotearoa will be preserved, and our documentary heritage kept accessible now and for future generations
Oral History and Sound collection
Archive of New Zealand Music
Our mahi
The Utaina project is a collaboration between the National Library, Archives New Zealand, and Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision to digitise our audiovisual collections with our digitisation partner Memnon. Its aim is to preserve items in formats the public can access and use. It will deliver the digitisation of audiovisual material at a scale and quality never seen before in Aotearoa.
As well as the audiovisual material already in our holdings, we'll continue to digitise new analogue items as we acquire them.
Retrieving collection items from the store. Photo by Sue Morris.
Why Utaina is needed
We need to digitise our audiovisual collections because:
they're stored on obsolete formats, or formats that deteriorate over time
the equipment needed to play them is no longer being made
fewer people with the expertise to maintain the playback equipment are available each year.
“Not only is this initiative essential for NZ to maintain its links to the past, it presents an opportunity for us to work together with our colleagues at Ngā Taonga and Archives to achieve a common goal. We are looking forward to sharing and learning from each other.”
— Mark Crookston, Programme Director, National Library of New Zealand.
Our name
The project was given the name Utaina! by Ngā Taonga. The name has been interpreted as ‘load the precious freight on board’, a catchphrase of Sir Āpirana Ngata when advocating for the recording and preservation of Māori language and heritage.
Project scope
Utaina is a huge project, with a combined volume of over 400,000 audiovisual magnetic media items to digitise. The National Library holds more than 105,000 collection items and Archives NZ holds around 10,000 items.
Our collection, along with the collections held by Archive New Zealand and Ngā Taonga, are priceless taonga that capture our nation’s history and it is a privilege to be involved in this important project.
Jessica Moran, Associate Chief Librarian,Research Collections at the National Library, is delighted that more than 100,000 items from the collections is going to be digitally preserved.
Our collection, along with the collections held by Ngā Taonga and Archives, are priceless taonga that capture our nation’s history and it is a privilege to be involved in this important project.
— Jessica Moran
Packing collection items for transit. Photo by Sue Morris.
Partnership
Thanks to Government investment of over $40 million in Budget 20, we're able to partner with international archiving specialist Memnon to digitise our holdings. Memnon will be based in Lower Hutt while the project is underway.
Access digitised audiovisual items
You'll still be able to access digitised audiovisual items as usual while we complete the project. Contact us via our Ask a librarian service if you want to view an audiovisual item we haven't digitised yet, please note there may be a delay if the items are currently in the queue for digitisation.
More about the Utaina project
NZ's broadcasting history being preserved in three-year project — 1News
Blog posts about Utaina — National Library
Surveying our audiovisual holdings — Archives New Zealand
Utaina – a multi-year digital preservation project — Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision