Kura joins up the dots

Jarrod Wakefield and Timothy Barnett, Auckland Libraries Digitised Content & Strategy team.

In recognition of World Digital Preservation Day, we spoke with Digitised Content & Strategy Manager, Timothy Barnett, about the important digital preservation projects our expert staff work on.

The team's goal is to make Auckland Libraries’ heritage collections available online to a worldwide audience. Tim tells us that no one else in the world has some of the items Auckland Libraries curates. "These are pieces of New Zealand's story that don't exist elsewhere."

Auckland Libraries launched Kura Heritage Collections Online in early 2019, a website where you can discover, explore and engage with the wealth of heritage content digitised by our Auckland Libraries preservation experts.

On each  Kura record, visitors are invited to leave comments and feedback to help fill in any gaps or add to the history of the items in our care.

Since the launch, Aucklanders and international website visitors have submitted wonderful and insightful feedback through the comments field. This has included name corrections of family members in photographs, fascinating added context for historical images, and amazement from families who have discovered previously unknown information on their ancestors.

Kura also allows you to search for and access content in languages other than English, such as our Eastern Manuscripts collection.

Through his work, Tim has uncovered some surprising personal connections to our heritage collections. In December 2018, Tim was transcribing signatures from the Addresses to Sir George Grey K.C.B. on his seventy-fourth birthday, when he came across a familiar name - his great-great-grandfather, whose correct arrival date in Aotearoa had never been known prior to Tim's fortuitous discovery!

To Tim and his team, Kura Heritage Collections Online is a tool that "joins up the dots" between our collections, Tāmaki Makaurau and the wider world.  The work of the Digital Preservation team enables us to connect with thousands of digitised items that build a fuller picture of our past, while we continue to preserve and ensure our future.