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Legal deposit: Collecting Aotearoa’s contemporary published heritage

Part of Connecting to collections 2022 series

Video | 45 mins
Event recorded on Tuesday 15 November 2022

The National Library mainly builds its collection of Aotearoa New Zealand publications through our legal deposit legislation. This talk in the Connecting to Collections series will highlight the range of publications deposited and acknowledge the contribution Aotearoa publishers make to our published documentary heritage by complying with legal deposit.

  • Transcript — Legal deposit: Collecting Aotearoa’s contemporary published heritage

    Speakers

    Joan McCracken, Rhonda Grantham

    Welcome

    Joan McCracken: Kia ora and welcome. Warm Pacific greeting to you. This is Connecting to Collections online from the Alexander Turnbull Library. Ko Joan McCracken aho.

    I'm with the Alexander Turnbull Library's outreach services team and I'm delighted you've joined us today, to learn more about the legal deposit, with Rhonda Grantham, the National Library's Legal Deposit Specialist.

    To open our talk today, we have, as our whakatauakī, a verse from the National Library's waiata, Kōkiri, kōkiri, kōkiri, na our Waikato-Tainui colleague, Bella Tarawhiti.

    Haere mai e te iwi
    Kia piri tāua
    Kia kite atu ai
    Ngā kupu whakairi e

    And a little housekeeping before Rhonda's presentation. As you'll have seen when you joined the webinar, we are recording it. And as this is a webinar, your videos and microphones are turned off. However, there's still an opportunity to interact with those of us in the room and with others in the audience.

    If you'd like to share where you're joining us from, have any general questions or comments, then please add them to chat. If you have any questions for Rhonda, then add those to Q&A. You'll find both buttons at the bottom of your Zoom screen. We'll be monitoring chat and Q&A. At the end of the presentation, I'll come back and ask Rhonda any questions we receive.

    We will also be adding some links to chat during the presentation. If you want to save those links, click on the ellipsis, the three dots beside the chat button, and select save chat.

    I'm now delighted to introduce Rhonda Grantham, National Library Legal Deposit Specialist. We're really looking forward to your presentation, Rhonda.

    Introduction

    Rhonda Grantham: Thanks Joan, for the lovely welcome.

    Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou e huihui mai nei. Greetings to everyone who is gathered here.

    I am very excited to welcome you to Legal Deposit: Collecting Aotearoa’s Contemporary Published Heritage.

    Now the main way the National Library builds its collection of Aotearoa New Zealand publications is by publishers supporting legal deposit legislation. My aim with this presentation is that you go away knowing the range and diversity of physical and digital publications collected under legal deposit, the amazing contribution Aotearoa New Zealand's publishers make to preserving our published documentary heritage by supporting legal deposit, how to find and access publications supplied, and, how you can work with us to further develop the collection by alerting us to new publications.

    So, a bit about me and the team I work within. I have been working in the Legal Deposit and Acquisition Team as part of the National Library since 2015. I started as a Collection Management Librarian and was appointed as a Legal Deposit specialist last year. Before a stint overseas I worked for six years in collection management roles within the Alexander Turnbull Library. I have a personal interest in collecting audio visual publications.

    Our team's work is split between staff building the collection — so yeah, first of all I should say that I am not the only one doing legal desposit. So, our team's work is split between collecting though legal deposit, and other ways of getting material into the National Library, such as, purchasing or appraising donations. We have around 15 people working full-time on legal deposit collection building and 5 on collection building using other methods. And we’re busy. You’ll probably understand why as I continue.

    As for this lovely image of a stool, hopefully all will be clear later in the session.

    So, what is legal deposit?

    The next few slides provide some background about legal deposit history and legislation. Legal deposit is a legal requirement that a person or group provide copies of their publications to a repository. The National Library of New Zealand is granted the status of a legal deposit library under part 4 of the National Library Act.

    Now, I'd just like to make the point that “legal deposit" is a mechanism for collection building, not a standalone collection within the National Library.

    I want to acknowledge the support of publishers for legal deposit when they deposit items at their own cost. This includes the cost of the item itself, their time arranging deposits, and the cost of getting it to the library.

    What happens to deposits?

    So, what happens to the deposits?

    The items deposited through legal deposit are held in perpetuity. So we'll always keep them, even if a publisher produces an updated version of their work. These updated version also need to be provided.

    A physical publication, a copy goes into the Alexander Turnbull Library, the National Research and Heritage collection. When a second copy is supplied, it goes into our general New Zealand Pacifica collection, and is available to borrow from your local library via inter-library loan.

    Digital publications are archived into the National Digital Heritage Archive, our long-term digital preservation system. These also form part of the Alexander Turnbull Library.

    If there are restrictions on members of the public accessing and using a digital publication — for example, because it's for sale — we restrict access to online researchers using the Katherine Mansfield Reading Room in our Wellington building. Publications accessed in this room cannot be downloaded, printed, emailed, or copied.

    If a publication is open-access, i.e. it's freely available on the web or we've recieved publisher permission, anyone can access our achived copy through the National Library catalogue. There will be a short demo about discovering physical and digital publications later in this presentation if we have time.

    So let's skip back for a brief history lesson about legal deposit.

    Forms of legal deposit date back to 1537, when the Montpellier Ordinance required every book published in France for the library of King Francois the First, "to safeguard the memory of humanity for posterity".

    Technically, the first legal deposit law for New Zealand publishers was around just after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, as the 1842 Copyright Act in the UK made legal deposit compulsory throughout the British Empire, but it was never enforced against non-compliant publishers.

    In 1904, the 1903 law came into force introducing legal deposit within New Zealand. At the time the key motivation for implementing legal deposit law in New Zealand was the concern that a large proportion of our publishing output at the time was ephemeral. So, if not collected shortly after publication, there was a risk it was lost forever. This concern continues today when we consider collecting digital publications and web-archiving under legal deposit.

    If you’re interested in more details surrounding legal deposit collection in New Zealand, Jhonny Antonio Pabón Cadavid's paper is a really, really good source to consult.

    Here we can see what was required in past versions of NZ legal deposit legislation from 1904 onwards. You see it mentions copies of books.

    The administration of legal deposit sat with the General Assembly Library until 1985, when it was transferred to the National Library to look after.

    However, since 1967 the Alexander Turnbull Library had been receiving one of the copies supplied to the General Assembly Library, and over the years a lot of legal deposit material has been transferred from the General Assembly —now Parliamentary Library — to the collections of the Turnbull and National libraries, helping to ensure that our collections of New Zealand’s published documentary heritage are as rich and comprehensive as possible.

    National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa) Act 2003

    As discussed the legal deposit mandate in New Zealand has gone through several iterations and collecting institutions since 1904. Our current legislation is in part 4 of the National Library of New Zealand Act.

    The Act outlines broadly the publications and publishers that fall into the scope of legal deposit. It also empowers our minister to declare that publishers of different sorts of documents have to deposit them with the Library and declares that the National Library is authorised to copy internet documents for the purpose of legal deposit. Of note is the change in terminology from “books” to “public documents”, this update broadens considerably the scope of what we can collect under the Act.

    The Minister makes declarations about the sort of documents that need to be deposited through notices in the Gazette.

    Legislation

    There are three notices currently in force — the Books and Periodicals Notice of 2004, the Electronic Documents Notice of 2006, which brought physical electronic documents such as CDs and DVDs under legal deposit, and empowered us to collect Internet documents.

    There's the Phonographic Documents Notice of 2017. We needed this new notice because vinyl sound recording did not fit the publication definitions in any of the other notices. They are not physical electronic documents like a CD, because sound is stored on a disc by a mechanical process not a magnetic, optical or electronic one.

    There will be a couple more slides about the legislation but I think it’s time to show some of the wonderful items collected under legal deposit.

    Recent publications

    I had the great fortune to work in libraries for most of my working life. A common observation librarians get is that it must be lovely to read books all day. I have never worked in a library role that has allowed me to do this. Doing this session has been a wonderful opportunity to pause and reflect on publishers’ support of legal deposit and the items I have the privilege of collecting on behalf of the community.

    Here are recent examples of items supplied by publishers.

    From people Media group we have Guide to New Zealand gin 2021, which I think reflect the ginaissance that's occuring, and especially as we come into Summer.

    Next we have Hinemoa Elder’s Wawata: Moon Dreaming from Penguin Random House.

    Bridget Williams Books produces texts on a wide range of topical issues. This one is about the social, moral and ethical aspects of Information technology.

    From Huia is Na Viro, Gina Cole’s second science fiction fantasy novel and a work of Pasifikafuturism, which I love the term.

    We receive daily and weekly newspapers, mainly in both hard copy and digital from publishers around the country, including Stuff.

    Physical and digital music is also supplied by New Zealand records labels.

    Books for and by children and young adults

    This next slide covers books for and by children and young people — or young persons.

    Violet black is a work of dystopian fiction for young adults by Eileen Merriman.

    In Taku toi Kahurangi: Matariki at St Francis Catholic School, young people from the school share stories of family, special places, proud moments, loved ones passed, and their aspirations for the future. One of the editors is David Riley, who's famous, in my world, for being Reading Warrior, who's goal is to get young people reading again, to inspire them with positive and inspirational stories, and to encourage them to write their own.

    Next image is Orange Cone at the Bridge, and it's a story from a road cone’s perspective.

    And I'm highlighting the very famous Tulip and Doug, and Tails of Tangleby Gardens, which is a mash-up of tales, or stories, and recipes.

    And finally, we have Tuhono, Wellington City Libraries’ poetry journal for young people. When the writers follow the submission guidelines, every piece of work submitted gets published. Which is very cool and similar in spirit to the criteria we use to decide whether a publication is in scope for legal deposit.

    “Public document” criteria

    So, circling back to part 4 of the National Library Act.

    There are three criteria a public document needs to fulfil, to be considered in scope for legal deposit.

    The first criteria is that one or more copies, whether or not there is any restriction on members of the public acquiring or accessing the document, are issued to the public, available to the public on request, and available to the public on the Internet.

    And just, as a mention, I will post that link to the Evolution of Legal Deposit in the chat, once I've finished chatting. Okay?

    The inclusion of content that is made available to the public either freely or with restrictions gives a clue as to why our legislation is so broad.

    It can be supplied to any person, group, or organisation that publishes material and makes it available to any section of the public.

    The second criterion is that the publication is printed or produced by any other means in New Zealand, or is commissioned to be printed or otherwise produced outside New Zealand by a person who is resident in New Zealand or whose principal place of business is in New Zealand. So pretty broad.

    And the third criterion is that copyright exists in the publication.

    So, I hope you can get a sense of why New Zealand has a broad legal deposit mandate that covers many types of publications.

    Self publishers

    To illustrate the point from the previous slide, we can collect a diverse range of material published by New Zealand individuals, many of whom publish their work on overseas platforms.

    In the preface of Marco Polo, Tony Armit notes that “Writing the account of my voyage on Marco Polo has been an adventure in itself. As a man in his late eighties, it’s only recently struck me how totally unusual it was for an untrained 18-year-old to start building a boat, then sail it around the world,”. This is just one example of the many other personal accounts we receive by New Zealanders.

    We also receive works produced by family historians. And collect under legal deposit a wide variety of self-released music. Many bands and musicians upload their recordings to platforms such as Bandcamp.

    Since 2018, we started actively collecting podcasts. A range of Aotearoa New Zealand organisations produce podcasts, however, there are also self-produced podcasts. An example is The History of Aotearoa New Zealand Podcast, produced by Thomas Rillstone.

    Zines are defined as self-published works of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced on a photocopier. This is a zine we received for legal deposit last year by Verity Elder.

    Groups and organisations

    Now, following is a sample of publications we receive from groups and organisations. And, you know, we think of these as mainly their primary business isn't producing publications.

    So we've got businesses, such as Bunnings.

    Societies, and this is the Wagner Society of New Zealand.

    Includes museums. Activist or grassroots political groups, and this is one of their publications, the Aotearoa Anarchist Review.

    And publications from charities, of which this is the Diabetes New Zealand annual review.

    Government and other institutions

    Government and other institutions produce a wide range and large quantities of publications.

    We collect, journals, research papers and other publications from New Zealand academic institutions. The example here is an open access online journal put out by the Lincoln University Planning Association.

    New Zealand has 7 Crown Research Institutes and they produce a wide range of reports, journals and other research outputs.

    Legal deposit covers publications issued by government departments – this includes official documents, like the one included here, which is the proclamation of Accession by King Charles the III.

    We collect from the 78 local, regional and unitary councils. Local bodies generate a large quantity of publications; research, planning, reporting, and promoting their activities.

    Independent Research Organisation are another source of diverse research outputs, which we endeavour to track and collect.

    Internet documents

    Some of the previous collection items highlighted are Internet documents under the Act. Our power to collect online content under legal deposit is very broad.
    From the requirements notice: “The National Librarian is authorised to copy any Internet document”

    From part 4 of the National Library Act: “Internet document is a document that is available to the public on the Internet, or upon request, whether or not there is any restriction on members of the public acquiring or accessing it.”

    And check out the definitions of Document and Information from Part 1 of the National Library Act.

    This breadth of collecting scope raises collection development and other questions, and I would welcome to hear any at the end of the session.

    Web archiving and social media

    There are other parts of the National Library and Alexander Turnbull Library who also collect public documents under the National Library Act.

    Recognising the importance of the internet in all aspects of New Zealand society and culture, we take a ‘snapshot’ of the whole .nz domain as it exists on the web during the time of harvesting. This is referred to as the New Zealand Web Domain Harvest and is done under the legal deposit mandate. The first domain harvest took place in 2008. Further harvests were run in 2010 and 2013. They have been run annually since 2015.

    Colleagues in the Alexander Turnbull Library also undertake selective web archiving based on priorities set out in the New Zealand and Pacific Collection Plan. One of these is to respond to current issues of national importance as they arise. An outcome of this is a collection of web materials surrounding significant events and conversations in New Zealand. The image is from a harvest of Stuff’s live stream coverage of the death and funeral of Queen Elizabeth the II.

    Social media is in scope for legal deposit, however, due to the scale of publicly available social media and the need to protect the privacy of individuals, we are selective in this area. Our focus is on content that has national significance.

    Some collections held by the Library are sets of Tweets about the Kaikoura Earthquake and Te Matatini.

    Others forms of publications

    Up to this point, we have mostly figured out how to collect and make available the publications described. Here is a list of forms of publications we have identified where we are grappling with questions of selection and the technical aspects of collections.

    They include data driven websites. An example is how the Health Survey is currently published, where it's a website and you can explore the data in a variety of ways depending on how you want to interact with the data.

    There are also apps, such as Kiwa digital, which is pictured here, where in collaboration with Ma’au Books, they’ve designed an app for families to learn basic Samoan, Tongan and Fijian language through bath time.

    There are also publications which use augmented reality or virtual reality in their construction.

    International standard numbers

    We often get asked by publishers whether they should supply books that do not have an ISBN, so I thought it might be worth explaining a little bit about International Standard Numbers and how they relate to legal deposit.

    An ISBN is an International Standard Book number, there are also standard numbers for serial publications and printed music.

    International Standard Numbers can be thought of as a publication's fingerprint, a world-wide identifier that helps publishers, suppliers, and libraries locate, order, and track published material.

    The National Library of New Zealand is the Agency responsible for allocating numbers to publishers who are publishing in New Zealand.

    If a publication meets the three criteria mentioned previously, regardless of whether is has a standard number or not, it is in scope for legal deposit.

    Finding and searching for publications

    As I mentioned earlier, there is not a named legal deposit collection. We create online descriptive records for publications we receive under legal deposit. They can be found in the National Library Catalogue and in Publications New Zealand, our national bibliography.

    Descriptive records the Library creates are used by other libraries in New Zealand and overseas, and help raise awareness of Aotearoa New Zealand’s publishing works now and into the future.

    And now, we're just going to pause and I'm just going to set things up to just do a quick demo, just of how we can search for and find a couple of publications recieved under legal deposit.

    Demo of finding publications

    So we are going to look for Anne Else's book called Women Together and it was produced in 1993 and the centenary, I think, of women getting the vote. Anyway, I'm just gonna plug in my terms that I prepared earlier — women and Else, Women Together organizations in New Zealand.

    So I'm just going to talk about the top four picks that we've got here. We've got women together, and I'm going to click on it, and it will take you to the New Zealand history page, where they've marked 120th of the anniversary of women's suffrage in 2018 by preparing an online version of this book. We're going to ignore the next one because that's the National Library of Australia's catalog.

    Someone has digitized the 1993 book. So that's US academic institution digitized their copy. But the fourth one down is our one. So this is the National Library's entry of the physical book. So Google has captured this in from our online catalogue.

    And we might be here. We might be interested in finding the book in another New Zealand Library or seeing the original record in our collections. So I'm going to click on that.

    Goes without saying that this book was received for legal deposit. And we're in here and we can see all of the different collections that hold this book. We can find some details down the bottom.

    And because it's a reference sort of book, you know, there's quite a few copies that are available for consultation.

    So, next.

    Now you wonder to yourself "Do you think the national library's collected that digital version that we looked at earlier in the NZ history site?" So I'm just gonna search for that up here.

    And here we are,Women Together.

    So this is an example of a digital item that we have collected under legal deposit.

    You can click on the archived copy there. You can see that it's open access. There is some content that would be restricted access. If it was it would say there. There's some more details about the work down the bottom. Again, it was the 120th anniversary of suffrage, so that was why they did it.

    And now we're just going to click on the link. And while that's loading, I just want to share a couple of points. I would always recommend that if you've got the choice, use the live version because you'll get the most up-to-date version. And also, in these data-driven times, it's valuable for website owners to know what resources are being accessed, which helps them maintain and develop their online information sources.

    However, resources will not always stay online and our archive copies will come into their own when when this has been removed from the live web, not only for the information they provide but also how the web was used to communicate information and ideas to the public.

    So we, very carefully — and you can tell that this is not the live because it's got this ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz web archive address that at the beginning. So you can sort of tell that it is an archived version and it was archived in 2019.

    And we've gone through and carefully checked it all to make sure we got it all. So you can click on any of the links and it takes you through the whole resource and this is the Atalanta Cycling Cup and I love these women.

    And they actually had a dress code. So they weren't allowed to wear — or they were probably discouraged from wearing rational dress or divided skirts. So they were cycling with their full skirts on, which would have been a challenge I imagine. Yeah.

    So that's Women Together the digital version. And that sort of concludes the sort of demo part. So you saw us searching for and finding a physical item and a digital item, updated digital item. So I'm going to take us back to the demo — I mean to this slide deck.

    Found some stuff?

    And the final slide. So, found some stuff? If you come across physical or online New Zealand Publications, including websites, that we don't have in the collection and you think we should, please contact us at LegalDeposit@dia.govt.nz or submit a web archive nomination form for a website.

    And thank you to Aotearoa New Zealand Publishers for whom, without their support of legal deposit, we wouldn't have these wonderful, wonderful items in our National Library Collection. And that concludes my talk.

    Joan McCracken: Thanks so much, Rhonda, that was fascinating. We do have some marvelous collections and publications coming in.

    Question 1: Small local newsletters

    Just one question from me, and we have another one in Q&A. But for me, I quite often get asked about small local newsletters that come from say Khandallah Kindergarten or something like that. Are we collecting ones of those or just national level Publications?

    Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, good question Joan. Technically those are all in scope for legal deposit. However, practically it isn't possible to necessarily collect all of them. So often we have holdings where people have approached us in the past and we've begun collecting them and we've continued to collect them because that's the thing with serial publications, ongoing publications. Once you commit to the first you've sort of got to keep collecting them until they end. So the answer is yes we do have local newsletters from groups and organizations around the country.

    Joan McCracken: So if you were a publisher of such a thing, would it be good to get in touch with you first before you deposit a small run newsletter?

    Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, yeah. And we really would want to have a really clear conversation about how wide the distribution of the newsletter is, how people would feel about — you know, there are much more issues about privacy, especially in the digital space. So we just would really want a careful conversation with publishers before we would get them to commit to supplying.

    Question 2: Overseas publications with chapters by New Zealanders

    Joan McCracken: Great, thank you. And a question from one of the audience. "What about an overseas publication with chapters by New Zealanders?"

    Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, so the Turnbull, not only is the collection plan for legal deposit, you know, the Alexander Turnbull Library has an interest in overseas published works, but with New Zealand content or New Zealand authors. So I would say just get in touch with the library if you come across something like that.

    And well, people don't really mind. They just want the resource in the collection. The way that we get it in, the acquisition method, is probably immaterial to most people, I would say. So yeah, we'd just be interested in it.

    Joan McCracken: Great. I know that the person who asked that question has contributed to overseas publications. So that would be something that the Turnbull collection development librarian would go out and seek rather than from you.

    Rhonda Grantham: Yep, yep, yep, yeah. So it's about the publisher. So if the publisher is publishing in New Zealand or a resident in New Zealand then it comes into legal deposit. Overseas publishers who are footing the cost of the publication, it's a different thing. It's not legal deposit but there is still an interest in having those items in the collection.

    Question 3: More types of publications

    Joan McCracken: Lovely, thank you. A couple of other questions. We collect zines, I understand. Is that correct?

    Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    Joan McCracken: And do we collect publications from other government departments like Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health?

    Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, all of that stuff, yes yeah. So we collect their websites. So that's part of the selective web harvesting program. And then also our team surfaces sort of key documents that these government departments produce.

    Joan McCracken: As well as the physical?

    Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, and physical. Yep, yep. Government departments are still providing physical publications like their annual reports and some reports and things like that.

    Joan McCracken: And if they produce both online and physical, do we collect both?

    Rhonda Grantham: Yes we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we do, when publishers do both formats, we still require the physical and we can collect the digital as well. So we're collecting both. Yeah.

    Question 4: Royal Commission on Abuse and Care

    Joan McCracken: Another question in Q&A. What about the Royal Commission on Abuse and Care. Will any of that material be collected?

    Rhonda Grantham: So the final report will be collected. The public record side of it will probably go to archives. But any kind of public produced document will be collected as part of legal deposit.

    Question 5: Websites

    Joan McCracken: Another question here. So if we collect websites, when did we start doing that and if we want to access older government department websites, for instance, do we need to come into the library to do that?

    Rhonda Grantham: No. They're all available online. So the quickest way for me to explain it would be, you know, you go into the National Library catalogue and you go and you search for the government department and then you use a filter by website and you will see them and you'll see the various harvests over the years and you will access them that way. Yep.

    Joan McCracken: Okay so the whole of 2016 is a record rather than the Ministry of Education website 2016. Have I got that right?

    Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you'll go to the Ministry of Education website, for example, and then you will look at all of the different harvests of that particular website and select the one that you want to do. And you can do that from your home. So you don't have to come in. All the website stuff's open access. The vast majority of it is open access from your home.

    Question 6: Bandcamp

    Joan McCracken: Thank you. And you mentioned earlier music being collected from places like Bandcamp. Is that correct? So individual artists, do they need to open up their Bandcamp to you? How does that happen?

    Rhonda Grantham: So it will depend. So some publishers choose to make their work available for no money. So we can we can collect those and then, for some, we have to approach them to allow us to access the copy if there's a price, if there's a cost to the publication.

    Question 7: Theses

    Joan McCracken: Thank you. Another query about theses. Do they fall into scope for legal deposit?

    Rhonda Grantham: That's a really, really good question. We have not collected them, but if they are openly — you know, technically if they're openly available they do fall into scope. But it's just one of those where we're thinking about that. Because we haven't we haven't historically collected theses, either as hard copy or as digital. But they're usually submitted with the academic institution of the students. So it's usually rely on the academic institution to collect the theses.

    Joan McCracken: Thank you.

    Rhonda Grantham: Good question though.

    Joan McCracken: There's a note that the Turnbull does collect some theses as part of their collecting but they are very selected. I suppose you could say, depending on topic and yeah.

    Question 8: Ephemera

    So another question about printed things like posters, prints, fine art prints, cards, so what we would call ephemera, I guess, in the Turnbull.

    Rhonda Grantham: Yeah so, in the Books and Periodicals Notice there are some carve-outs for trade publications, labels, programs, that kind of material that is not required for legal deposit. So that generally covers, sort of, that covers us not collecting posters and that kind of material. Though the Alexander Turnbull Library is, as some people may know, has a separate collection and they call it ephemera collection for that kind of material. But we don't work with that material in legal deposit.

    Joan McCracken: Okay and that includes fine art prints as well. I thought they might be slightly outside the ephemera.

    Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, yeah sorry. We haven't historically collected fine art prints. Though we have collected special printed books but not artworks.

    Closing

    Joan McCracken: Oh. That's really fascinating. Thank you, that's a really interesting insight into all of those things. I will post the addresses that you mentioned for the legal deposit contact email that you've got up there. So people can take that out of the chat if they want to. We will be posting the recording of Rhonda's presentation if you think there are people who weren't able to make it today and would like to hear it. And I'm sure there will be a number of those people around the country.

    And also, if you would like to hear about other events that the National Library hosts, including our Connecting to Collections sessions, this is the last one for 2022, but there will certainly be more in 2023. I'll put the events page link so you can subscribe and just chat and we really look forward to the next time you can join us just to finish for the whakatauki.

    Mā te kimi ka kite
    Mā te kite ka mōhio
    Mā te mōhio ka mārama

    Thank you for joining us.


    Any errors with the transcript, let us know and we will fix them. Email us at digital-services@dia.govt.nz

Transcript — Legal deposit: Collecting Aotearoa’s contemporary published heritage

Speakers

Joan McCracken, Rhonda Grantham

Welcome

Joan McCracken: Kia ora and welcome. Warm Pacific greeting to you. This is Connecting to Collections online from the Alexander Turnbull Library. Ko Joan McCracken aho.

I'm with the Alexander Turnbull Library's outreach services team and I'm delighted you've joined us today, to learn more about the legal deposit, with Rhonda Grantham, the National Library's Legal Deposit Specialist.

To open our talk today, we have, as our whakatauakī, a verse from the National Library's waiata, Kōkiri, kōkiri, kōkiri, na our Waikato-Tainui colleague, Bella Tarawhiti.

Haere mai e te iwi
Kia piri tāua
Kia kite atu ai
Ngā kupu whakairi e

And a little housekeeping before Rhonda's presentation. As you'll have seen when you joined the webinar, we are recording it. And as this is a webinar, your videos and microphones are turned off. However, there's still an opportunity to interact with those of us in the room and with others in the audience.

If you'd like to share where you're joining us from, have any general questions or comments, then please add them to chat. If you have any questions for Rhonda, then add those to Q&A. You'll find both buttons at the bottom of your Zoom screen. We'll be monitoring chat and Q&A. At the end of the presentation, I'll come back and ask Rhonda any questions we receive.

We will also be adding some links to chat during the presentation. If you want to save those links, click on the ellipsis, the three dots beside the chat button, and select save chat.

I'm now delighted to introduce Rhonda Grantham, National Library Legal Deposit Specialist. We're really looking forward to your presentation, Rhonda.

Introduction

Rhonda Grantham: Thanks Joan, for the lovely welcome.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou e huihui mai nei. Greetings to everyone who is gathered here.

I am very excited to welcome you to Legal Deposit: Collecting Aotearoa’s Contemporary Published Heritage.

Now the main way the National Library builds its collection of Aotearoa New Zealand publications is by publishers supporting legal deposit legislation. My aim with this presentation is that you go away knowing the range and diversity of physical and digital publications collected under legal deposit, the amazing contribution Aotearoa New Zealand's publishers make to preserving our published documentary heritage by supporting legal deposit, how to find and access publications supplied, and, how you can work with us to further develop the collection by alerting us to new publications.

So, a bit about me and the team I work within. I have been working in the Legal Deposit and Acquisition Team as part of the National Library since 2015. I started as a Collection Management Librarian and was appointed as a Legal Deposit specialist last year. Before a stint overseas I worked for six years in collection management roles within the Alexander Turnbull Library. I have a personal interest in collecting audio visual publications.

Our team's work is split between staff building the collection — so yeah, first of all I should say that I am not the only one doing legal desposit. So, our team's work is split between collecting though legal deposit, and other ways of getting material into the National Library, such as, purchasing or appraising donations. We have around 15 people working full-time on legal deposit collection building and 5 on collection building using other methods. And we’re busy. You’ll probably understand why as I continue.

As for this lovely image of a stool, hopefully all will be clear later in the session.

So, what is legal deposit?

The next few slides provide some background about legal deposit history and legislation. Legal deposit is a legal requirement that a person or group provide copies of their publications to a repository. The National Library of New Zealand is granted the status of a legal deposit library under part 4 of the National Library Act.

Now, I'd just like to make the point that “legal deposit" is a mechanism for collection building, not a standalone collection within the National Library.

I want to acknowledge the support of publishers for legal deposit when they deposit items at their own cost. This includes the cost of the item itself, their time arranging deposits, and the cost of getting it to the library.

What happens to deposits?

So, what happens to the deposits?

The items deposited through legal deposit are held in perpetuity. So we'll always keep them, even if a publisher produces an updated version of their work. These updated version also need to be provided.

A physical publication, a copy goes into the Alexander Turnbull Library, the National Research and Heritage collection. When a second copy is supplied, it goes into our general New Zealand Pacifica collection, and is available to borrow from your local library via inter-library loan.

Digital publications are archived into the National Digital Heritage Archive, our long-term digital preservation system. These also form part of the Alexander Turnbull Library.

If there are restrictions on members of the public accessing and using a digital publication — for example, because it's for sale — we restrict access to online researchers using the Katherine Mansfield Reading Room in our Wellington building. Publications accessed in this room cannot be downloaded, printed, emailed, or copied.

If a publication is open-access, i.e. it's freely available on the web or we've recieved publisher permission, anyone can access our achived copy through the National Library catalogue. There will be a short demo about discovering physical and digital publications later in this presentation if we have time.

So let's skip back for a brief history lesson about legal deposit.

Forms of legal deposit date back to 1537, when the Montpellier Ordinance required every book published in France for the library of King Francois the First, "to safeguard the memory of humanity for posterity".

Technically, the first legal deposit law for New Zealand publishers was around just after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, as the 1842 Copyright Act in the UK made legal deposit compulsory throughout the British Empire, but it was never enforced against non-compliant publishers.

In 1904, the 1903 law came into force introducing legal deposit within New Zealand. At the time the key motivation for implementing legal deposit law in New Zealand was the concern that a large proportion of our publishing output at the time was ephemeral. So, if not collected shortly after publication, there was a risk it was lost forever. This concern continues today when we consider collecting digital publications and web-archiving under legal deposit.

If you’re interested in more details surrounding legal deposit collection in New Zealand, Jhonny Antonio Pabón Cadavid's paper is a really, really good source to consult.

Here we can see what was required in past versions of NZ legal deposit legislation from 1904 onwards. You see it mentions copies of books.

The administration of legal deposit sat with the General Assembly Library until 1985, when it was transferred to the National Library to look after.

However, since 1967 the Alexander Turnbull Library had been receiving one of the copies supplied to the General Assembly Library, and over the years a lot of legal deposit material has been transferred from the General Assembly —now Parliamentary Library — to the collections of the Turnbull and National libraries, helping to ensure that our collections of New Zealand’s published documentary heritage are as rich and comprehensive as possible.

National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa) Act 2003

As discussed the legal deposit mandate in New Zealand has gone through several iterations and collecting institutions since 1904. Our current legislation is in part 4 of the National Library of New Zealand Act.

The Act outlines broadly the publications and publishers that fall into the scope of legal deposit. It also empowers our minister to declare that publishers of different sorts of documents have to deposit them with the Library and declares that the National Library is authorised to copy internet documents for the purpose of legal deposit. Of note is the change in terminology from “books” to “public documents”, this update broadens considerably the scope of what we can collect under the Act.

The Minister makes declarations about the sort of documents that need to be deposited through notices in the Gazette.

Legislation

There are three notices currently in force — the Books and Periodicals Notice of 2004, the Electronic Documents Notice of 2006, which brought physical electronic documents such as CDs and DVDs under legal deposit, and empowered us to collect Internet documents.

There's the Phonographic Documents Notice of 2017. We needed this new notice because vinyl sound recording did not fit the publication definitions in any of the other notices. They are not physical electronic documents like a CD, because sound is stored on a disc by a mechanical process not a magnetic, optical or electronic one.

There will be a couple more slides about the legislation but I think it’s time to show some of the wonderful items collected under legal deposit.

Recent publications

I had the great fortune to work in libraries for most of my working life. A common observation librarians get is that it must be lovely to read books all day. I have never worked in a library role that has allowed me to do this. Doing this session has been a wonderful opportunity to pause and reflect on publishers’ support of legal deposit and the items I have the privilege of collecting on behalf of the community.

Here are recent examples of items supplied by publishers.

From people Media group we have Guide to New Zealand gin 2021, which I think reflect the ginaissance that's occuring, and especially as we come into Summer.

Next we have Hinemoa Elder’s Wawata: Moon Dreaming from Penguin Random House.

Bridget Williams Books produces texts on a wide range of topical issues. This one is about the social, moral and ethical aspects of Information technology.

From Huia is Na Viro, Gina Cole’s second science fiction fantasy novel and a work of Pasifikafuturism, which I love the term.

We receive daily and weekly newspapers, mainly in both hard copy and digital from publishers around the country, including Stuff.

Physical and digital music is also supplied by New Zealand records labels.

Books for and by children and young adults

This next slide covers books for and by children and young people — or young persons.

Violet black is a work of dystopian fiction for young adults by Eileen Merriman.

In Taku toi Kahurangi: Matariki at St Francis Catholic School, young people from the school share stories of family, special places, proud moments, loved ones passed, and their aspirations for the future. One of the editors is David Riley, who's famous, in my world, for being Reading Warrior, who's goal is to get young people reading again, to inspire them with positive and inspirational stories, and to encourage them to write their own.

Next image is Orange Cone at the Bridge, and it's a story from a road cone’s perspective.

And I'm highlighting the very famous Tulip and Doug, and Tails of Tangleby Gardens, which is a mash-up of tales, or stories, and recipes.

And finally, we have Tuhono, Wellington City Libraries’ poetry journal for young people. When the writers follow the submission guidelines, every piece of work submitted gets published. Which is very cool and similar in spirit to the criteria we use to decide whether a publication is in scope for legal deposit.

“Public document” criteria

So, circling back to part 4 of the National Library Act.

There are three criteria a public document needs to fulfil, to be considered in scope for legal deposit.

The first criteria is that one or more copies, whether or not there is any restriction on members of the public acquiring or accessing the document, are issued to the public, available to the public on request, and available to the public on the Internet.

And just, as a mention, I will post that link to the Evolution of Legal Deposit in the chat, once I've finished chatting. Okay?

The inclusion of content that is made available to the public either freely or with restrictions gives a clue as to why our legislation is so broad.

It can be supplied to any person, group, or organisation that publishes material and makes it available to any section of the public.

The second criterion is that the publication is printed or produced by any other means in New Zealand, or is commissioned to be printed or otherwise produced outside New Zealand by a person who is resident in New Zealand or whose principal place of business is in New Zealand. So pretty broad.

And the third criterion is that copyright exists in the publication.

So, I hope you can get a sense of why New Zealand has a broad legal deposit mandate that covers many types of publications.

Self publishers

To illustrate the point from the previous slide, we can collect a diverse range of material published by New Zealand individuals, many of whom publish their work on overseas platforms.

In the preface of Marco Polo, Tony Armit notes that “Writing the account of my voyage on Marco Polo has been an adventure in itself. As a man in his late eighties, it’s only recently struck me how totally unusual it was for an untrained 18-year-old to start building a boat, then sail it around the world,”. This is just one example of the many other personal accounts we receive by New Zealanders.

We also receive works produced by family historians. And collect under legal deposit a wide variety of self-released music. Many bands and musicians upload their recordings to platforms such as Bandcamp.

Since 2018, we started actively collecting podcasts. A range of Aotearoa New Zealand organisations produce podcasts, however, there are also self-produced podcasts. An example is The History of Aotearoa New Zealand Podcast, produced by Thomas Rillstone.

Zines are defined as self-published works of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced on a photocopier. This is a zine we received for legal deposit last year by Verity Elder.

Groups and organisations

Now, following is a sample of publications we receive from groups and organisations. And, you know, we think of these as mainly their primary business isn't producing publications.

So we've got businesses, such as Bunnings.

Societies, and this is the Wagner Society of New Zealand.

Includes museums. Activist or grassroots political groups, and this is one of their publications, the Aotearoa Anarchist Review.

And publications from charities, of which this is the Diabetes New Zealand annual review.

Government and other institutions

Government and other institutions produce a wide range and large quantities of publications.

We collect, journals, research papers and other publications from New Zealand academic institutions. The example here is an open access online journal put out by the Lincoln University Planning Association.

New Zealand has 7 Crown Research Institutes and they produce a wide range of reports, journals and other research outputs.

Legal deposit covers publications issued by government departments – this includes official documents, like the one included here, which is the proclamation of Accession by King Charles the III.

We collect from the 78 local, regional and unitary councils. Local bodies generate a large quantity of publications; research, planning, reporting, and promoting their activities.

Independent Research Organisation are another source of diverse research outputs, which we endeavour to track and collect.

Internet documents

Some of the previous collection items highlighted are Internet documents under the Act. Our power to collect online content under legal deposit is very broad.
From the requirements notice: “The National Librarian is authorised to copy any Internet document”

From part 4 of the National Library Act: “Internet document is a document that is available to the public on the Internet, or upon request, whether or not there is any restriction on members of the public acquiring or accessing it.”

And check out the definitions of Document and Information from Part 1 of the National Library Act.

This breadth of collecting scope raises collection development and other questions, and I would welcome to hear any at the end of the session.

Web archiving and social media

There are other parts of the National Library and Alexander Turnbull Library who also collect public documents under the National Library Act.

Recognising the importance of the internet in all aspects of New Zealand society and culture, we take a ‘snapshot’ of the whole .nz domain as it exists on the web during the time of harvesting. This is referred to as the New Zealand Web Domain Harvest and is done under the legal deposit mandate. The first domain harvest took place in 2008. Further harvests were run in 2010 and 2013. They have been run annually since 2015.

Colleagues in the Alexander Turnbull Library also undertake selective web archiving based on priorities set out in the New Zealand and Pacific Collection Plan. One of these is to respond to current issues of national importance as they arise. An outcome of this is a collection of web materials surrounding significant events and conversations in New Zealand. The image is from a harvest of Stuff’s live stream coverage of the death and funeral of Queen Elizabeth the II.

Social media is in scope for legal deposit, however, due to the scale of publicly available social media and the need to protect the privacy of individuals, we are selective in this area. Our focus is on content that has national significance.

Some collections held by the Library are sets of Tweets about the Kaikoura Earthquake and Te Matatini.

Others forms of publications

Up to this point, we have mostly figured out how to collect and make available the publications described. Here is a list of forms of publications we have identified where we are grappling with questions of selection and the technical aspects of collections.

They include data driven websites. An example is how the Health Survey is currently published, where it's a website and you can explore the data in a variety of ways depending on how you want to interact with the data.

There are also apps, such as Kiwa digital, which is pictured here, where in collaboration with Ma’au Books, they’ve designed an app for families to learn basic Samoan, Tongan and Fijian language through bath time.

There are also publications which use augmented reality or virtual reality in their construction.

International standard numbers

We often get asked by publishers whether they should supply books that do not have an ISBN, so I thought it might be worth explaining a little bit about International Standard Numbers and how they relate to legal deposit.

An ISBN is an International Standard Book number, there are also standard numbers for serial publications and printed music.

International Standard Numbers can be thought of as a publication's fingerprint, a world-wide identifier that helps publishers, suppliers, and libraries locate, order, and track published material.

The National Library of New Zealand is the Agency responsible for allocating numbers to publishers who are publishing in New Zealand.

If a publication meets the three criteria mentioned previously, regardless of whether is has a standard number or not, it is in scope for legal deposit.

Finding and searching for publications

As I mentioned earlier, there is not a named legal deposit collection. We create online descriptive records for publications we receive under legal deposit. They can be found in the National Library Catalogue and in Publications New Zealand, our national bibliography.

Descriptive records the Library creates are used by other libraries in New Zealand and overseas, and help raise awareness of Aotearoa New Zealand’s publishing works now and into the future.

And now, we're just going to pause and I'm just going to set things up to just do a quick demo, just of how we can search for and find a couple of publications recieved under legal deposit.

Demo of finding publications

So we are going to look for Anne Else's book called Women Together and it was produced in 1993 and the centenary, I think, of women getting the vote. Anyway, I'm just gonna plug in my terms that I prepared earlier — women and Else, Women Together organizations in New Zealand.

So I'm just going to talk about the top four picks that we've got here. We've got women together, and I'm going to click on it, and it will take you to the New Zealand history page, where they've marked 120th of the anniversary of women's suffrage in 2018 by preparing an online version of this book. We're going to ignore the next one because that's the National Library of Australia's catalog.

Someone has digitized the 1993 book. So that's US academic institution digitized their copy. But the fourth one down is our one. So this is the National Library's entry of the physical book. So Google has captured this in from our online catalogue.

And we might be here. We might be interested in finding the book in another New Zealand Library or seeing the original record in our collections. So I'm going to click on that.

Goes without saying that this book was received for legal deposit. And we're in here and we can see all of the different collections that hold this book. We can find some details down the bottom.

And because it's a reference sort of book, you know, there's quite a few copies that are available for consultation.

So, next.

Now you wonder to yourself "Do you think the national library's collected that digital version that we looked at earlier in the NZ history site?" So I'm just gonna search for that up here.

And here we are,Women Together.

So this is an example of a digital item that we have collected under legal deposit.

You can click on the archived copy there. You can see that it's open access. There is some content that would be restricted access. If it was it would say there. There's some more details about the work down the bottom. Again, it was the 120th anniversary of suffrage, so that was why they did it.

And now we're just going to click on the link. And while that's loading, I just want to share a couple of points. I would always recommend that if you've got the choice, use the live version because you'll get the most up-to-date version. And also, in these data-driven times, it's valuable for website owners to know what resources are being accessed, which helps them maintain and develop their online information sources.

However, resources will not always stay online and our archive copies will come into their own when when this has been removed from the live web, not only for the information they provide but also how the web was used to communicate information and ideas to the public.

So we, very carefully — and you can tell that this is not the live because it's got this ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz web archive address that at the beginning. So you can sort of tell that it is an archived version and it was archived in 2019.

And we've gone through and carefully checked it all to make sure we got it all. So you can click on any of the links and it takes you through the whole resource and this is the Atalanta Cycling Cup and I love these women.

And they actually had a dress code. So they weren't allowed to wear — or they were probably discouraged from wearing rational dress or divided skirts. So they were cycling with their full skirts on, which would have been a challenge I imagine. Yeah.

So that's Women Together the digital version. And that sort of concludes the sort of demo part. So you saw us searching for and finding a physical item and a digital item, updated digital item. So I'm going to take us back to the demo — I mean to this slide deck.

Found some stuff?

And the final slide. So, found some stuff? If you come across physical or online New Zealand Publications, including websites, that we don't have in the collection and you think we should, please contact us at LegalDeposit@dia.govt.nz or submit a web archive nomination form for a website.

And thank you to Aotearoa New Zealand Publishers for whom, without their support of legal deposit, we wouldn't have these wonderful, wonderful items in our National Library Collection. And that concludes my talk.

Joan McCracken: Thanks so much, Rhonda, that was fascinating. We do have some marvelous collections and publications coming in.

Question 1: Small local newsletters

Just one question from me, and we have another one in Q&A. But for me, I quite often get asked about small local newsletters that come from say Khandallah Kindergarten or something like that. Are we collecting ones of those or just national level Publications?

Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, good question Joan. Technically those are all in scope for legal deposit. However, practically it isn't possible to necessarily collect all of them. So often we have holdings where people have approached us in the past and we've begun collecting them and we've continued to collect them because that's the thing with serial publications, ongoing publications. Once you commit to the first you've sort of got to keep collecting them until they end. So the answer is yes we do have local newsletters from groups and organizations around the country.

Joan McCracken: So if you were a publisher of such a thing, would it be good to get in touch with you first before you deposit a small run newsletter?

Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, yeah. And we really would want to have a really clear conversation about how wide the distribution of the newsletter is, how people would feel about — you know, there are much more issues about privacy, especially in the digital space. So we just would really want a careful conversation with publishers before we would get them to commit to supplying.

Question 2: Overseas publications with chapters by New Zealanders

Joan McCracken: Great, thank you. And a question from one of the audience. "What about an overseas publication with chapters by New Zealanders?"

Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, so the Turnbull, not only is the collection plan for legal deposit, you know, the Alexander Turnbull Library has an interest in overseas published works, but with New Zealand content or New Zealand authors. So I would say just get in touch with the library if you come across something like that.

And well, people don't really mind. They just want the resource in the collection. The way that we get it in, the acquisition method, is probably immaterial to most people, I would say. So yeah, we'd just be interested in it.

Joan McCracken: Great. I know that the person who asked that question has contributed to overseas publications. So that would be something that the Turnbull collection development librarian would go out and seek rather than from you.

Rhonda Grantham: Yep, yep, yep, yeah. So it's about the publisher. So if the publisher is publishing in New Zealand or a resident in New Zealand then it comes into legal deposit. Overseas publishers who are footing the cost of the publication, it's a different thing. It's not legal deposit but there is still an interest in having those items in the collection.

Question 3: More types of publications

Joan McCracken: Lovely, thank you. A couple of other questions. We collect zines, I understand. Is that correct?

Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joan McCracken: And do we collect publications from other government departments like Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health?

Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, all of that stuff, yes yeah. So we collect their websites. So that's part of the selective web harvesting program. And then also our team surfaces sort of key documents that these government departments produce.

Joan McCracken: As well as the physical?

Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, and physical. Yep, yep. Government departments are still providing physical publications like their annual reports and some reports and things like that.

Joan McCracken: And if they produce both online and physical, do we collect both?

Rhonda Grantham: Yes we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we do, when publishers do both formats, we still require the physical and we can collect the digital as well. So we're collecting both. Yeah.

Question 4: Royal Commission on Abuse and Care

Joan McCracken: Another question in Q&A. What about the Royal Commission on Abuse and Care. Will any of that material be collected?

Rhonda Grantham: So the final report will be collected. The public record side of it will probably go to archives. But any kind of public produced document will be collected as part of legal deposit.

Question 5: Websites

Joan McCracken: Another question here. So if we collect websites, when did we start doing that and if we want to access older government department websites, for instance, do we need to come into the library to do that?

Rhonda Grantham: No. They're all available online. So the quickest way for me to explain it would be, you know, you go into the National Library catalogue and you go and you search for the government department and then you use a filter by website and you will see them and you'll see the various harvests over the years and you will access them that way. Yep.

Joan McCracken: Okay so the whole of 2016 is a record rather than the Ministry of Education website 2016. Have I got that right?

Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you'll go to the Ministry of Education website, for example, and then you will look at all of the different harvests of that particular website and select the one that you want to do. And you can do that from your home. So you don't have to come in. All the website stuff's open access. The vast majority of it is open access from your home.

Question 6: Bandcamp

Joan McCracken: Thank you. And you mentioned earlier music being collected from places like Bandcamp. Is that correct? So individual artists, do they need to open up their Bandcamp to you? How does that happen?

Rhonda Grantham: So it will depend. So some publishers choose to make their work available for no money. So we can we can collect those and then, for some, we have to approach them to allow us to access the copy if there's a price, if there's a cost to the publication.

Question 7: Theses

Joan McCracken: Thank you. Another query about theses. Do they fall into scope for legal deposit?

Rhonda Grantham: That's a really, really good question. We have not collected them, but if they are openly — you know, technically if they're openly available they do fall into scope. But it's just one of those where we're thinking about that. Because we haven't we haven't historically collected theses, either as hard copy or as digital. But they're usually submitted with the academic institution of the students. So it's usually rely on the academic institution to collect the theses.

Joan McCracken: Thank you.

Rhonda Grantham: Good question though.

Joan McCracken: There's a note that the Turnbull does collect some theses as part of their collecting but they are very selected. I suppose you could say, depending on topic and yeah.

Question 8: Ephemera

So another question about printed things like posters, prints, fine art prints, cards, so what we would call ephemera, I guess, in the Turnbull.

Rhonda Grantham: Yeah so, in the Books and Periodicals Notice there are some carve-outs for trade publications, labels, programs, that kind of material that is not required for legal deposit. So that generally covers, sort of, that covers us not collecting posters and that kind of material. Though the Alexander Turnbull Library is, as some people may know, has a separate collection and they call it ephemera collection for that kind of material. But we don't work with that material in legal deposit.

Joan McCracken: Okay and that includes fine art prints as well. I thought they might be slightly outside the ephemera.

Rhonda Grantham: Yeah, yeah sorry. We haven't historically collected fine art prints. Though we have collected special printed books but not artworks.

Closing

Joan McCracken: Oh. That's really fascinating. Thank you, that's a really interesting insight into all of those things. I will post the addresses that you mentioned for the legal deposit contact email that you've got up there. So people can take that out of the chat if they want to. We will be posting the recording of Rhonda's presentation if you think there are people who weren't able to make it today and would like to hear it. And I'm sure there will be a number of those people around the country.

And also, if you would like to hear about other events that the National Library hosts, including our Connecting to Collections sessions, this is the last one for 2022, but there will certainly be more in 2023. I'll put the events page link so you can subscribe and just chat and we really look forward to the next time you can join us just to finish for the whakatauki.

Mā te kimi ka kite
Mā te kite ka mōhio
Mā te mōhio ka mārama

Thank you for joining us.


Any errors with the transcript, let us know and we will fix them. Email us at digital-services@dia.govt.nz


Legal deposit is a legal requirement that Aotearoa New Zealand publications are deposited with the National Library. This ensures that the Library can collect contemporary publications and preserve them for future generations.

Come along to learn:

  • about the wide range of physical and digital material collected under legal deposit

  • how you can find and access publications supplied for legal deposit

  • how you can help build the collection by alerting us to new publications.

More about legal deposit

About the speaker

Rhonda Grantham is the National Library's Legal Deposit Specialist. A key aspect of her role is engaging with authors, publishers, and other stakeholders to advise about legal deposit. She has many years' experience selecting, acquiring and describing material in a range of formats.

Check before you come

Due to COVID-19 some of our events can be cancelled or postponed at very short notice. Please check the website for updated information about individual events before you come. For more general information about National Library services and exhibitions have look at our COVID-19 page.

Image credit: ‘Books supplied for legal deposit ready for cataloguing, National Library of New Zealand, Wellington’, 2017, by Mark Beatty.