UC Librarys Heritage Collections

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UC Librarys Heritage Collections

• Featuring the Macmillan Brown Library

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UC Librarys Heritage Collections

• The University of Canterbury heritage collections
  are mainly held at the Macmillan Brown Library
• These collections are impressive in their scope
  and cover a vast range of subject areas.
  Specialist areas include Maori and Pacific
  culture, society and history as well as New
  Zealand heritage with an emphasis on Canterbury
  and the West Coast
• They include the art, archives, architectural
  drawings, photographs, published, and memorabilia
  and ephemera collections

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The Macmillan Brown Library

• Named after John Macmillan Brown (1846-1935), one
  of UCs foundation professors
• Macmillan Brown left the bulk of his estate to
  the University to fund a library and Centre for
  Pacific Studies
• Established as a separate collection within UC in
  1935
• Established as separate library with public
  facilities in 1993 on level 7 of the Central
  Library. Moved across campus to Te Ao Marama in
  1997
• New Zealand and Pacific Islands focus
• Published collection has grown from 15,000
  publications in 1935 to approximately 110,000
  publications in 2008

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Collection overview

• Approx 110,000 published items
• 3800 linear metres of archives
• 50,000 photographs
• 100,000 architectural drawings
• 3000 works of art
• 1000 hours of audio recordings

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Published collections

• Maori, New Zealand heritage and Pacific Islands
  focus. Includes books, CDs, videos and DVDs
• 100,000 published items in closed access storage
• 10,000 published items with a mainly Maori focus
  on open access in Aotearoa Room complex
• There is a separate Reading Room and Secure
  Reading Area for viewing art works, archives and
  rare items

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Published collection storage

• 2 very large onsite storage rooms installed with
  Lundia compactus shelving
• Recently added shelving into hallways
• Very limited space remaining in our closed access
  storage
• Large runs of Pacific newspapers stored in
  Library warehouse

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Documentary Archives

• Canterbury/Westland focus
• Particular strengths in areas of political
  parties, trade union records, writers and
  artists papers and community groups active in
  social change
• This year we have a Lottery Boards Grant to do A
  D on our backlog. Started with 40
  uncatalogued. Currently down to approx 14
• A D project has produced some remarkable
  discoveries eg. previously unknown James K
  Baxter manuscript

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Documentary archives storage

• Aim in redesigning level 1 storage in Library was
  to move 19th century manuscript collection into
  best storage facility. Photograph store problems
  curtailed this aim
• Documentary archives are currently stored in
  Library Warehouse.
• Regular environmental monitoring shows that as
  long as items are boxedwe are close to meeting
  national storage standards
• Only have another 2-3 years of expansion before
  we are full
• In 2008 implemented a one year moratorium on
  collecting to enable us to focus on our backlog
  and storage issues

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Photographic Collection

• 40 - 50,000 photographs
• Date from late 1860s
• Approx 50 catalogued
• Approx 4,500 images went online this year
• Joined Matapihi and images available via Digital
  Library and Matapihi
• In first month after launch, our collections had
  second highest hit rate on Matapihi

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Photographic storage

• This year we had to make an urgent relocation of
  the collection from the designated Photograph
  Store in our basement to a newly refitted storage
  area on Level 1
• Glass plate negatives, 19th century photographs
  and negatives that require variety of different
  storage types now stored in conditions designed
  for documentary archives
• Trade-off between a potential disaster scenario
  and placing material in safe but sub-optimal
  environmental conditions for media type

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Architectural Drawings

• Over 100,000 items. 90 are not catalogued
• Date range from 1870s early 2000
• Canterbury/Westland focus and covers the a range
  of public and private dwellings over that time
  period representing comprehensive history of
  built environment
• Approx 800 items issued this year. Roughly 50
  use external and 50 by students and staff
• External demand from architects most taxing on
  our resources

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Architectural drawings storage

• 19th Century drawings stored in solander boxes in
  MB Librarys controlled environment
• Majority of collection stored variously in
  library warehouse storage facilities on campus
• Currently at capacity we have no more space
  available to fill

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Art Collection

• UC Library has delegated responsibility for
  managing UCs 3000 works of art
• Major strength of collection is the
  representation of Canterbury art and artists, in
  particular those who have taught or studied at
  the University or at the College of Education
• Art Curator works from Macmillan Brown Library
  and uses our infrastructure to manage the
  collections
• Many synergies between the art collection and
  other special collections managed by Macmillan
  Brown Library staff

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Art storage

• 3 storage systems for artworks racked storage
  for unglazed works, slot storage for glazed
  works, flat storage for unframed works
• We are nearing our full capacity
• Environmentally controlled and monitored
• Access is a major issue as artworks do not
  conform to standard sizes they present their
  own challenges for retrieval and display
• Different media present challenges in terms of
  preventive conservation in an area primarily set
  up for paper based collections

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Audio recordings

• 1000 hours of audio recordings, stored with
  Photograph Collection
• Many now migrated to CD
• Material mainly produced from the research effort
  of Canterbury staff and students, for example
• Interviews with working class employees
  from1930s
• Lyttelton Oral History Archive interviews with
  residents from Lyttelton born in 1890s
• Original speeches of Sir Geoffrey Palmer from 4th
  Labour Government

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Digital Library

• UC Library purchased Digital Library as a digital
  object management system for its theses,
  institutional repository and archival
  collections
• We have designed a web interface to act as a
  gateway to Digital Libraryhttp//library.canterb
  ury.ac.nz/home/archives.shtml
• Enables keyword searching of inventories, digital
  images eg photographs and database information
• It is not primarily a metadata management system.
  We have manipulated the software to enable us to
  provide access to our collection metadata

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Digitisation initiatives

• Rapidly evolving process
• Started with ad hoc initiatives resulting from
  user requests and staff initiatives
• Evolved into project based management
• Pilot project was the Springbok Tour Archive,
  then AC Graham Collection which has now been
  rolled out to cover the digitisation of our Copy
  Print Collection, and more recently digitising
  the Rutherford Collection http//library.canterbur
  y.ac.nz/home/archives.shtml
• Has enabled us to have inter-institutional
  collaboration Matapihi
• Pacific Voyages used our published collections
  produced for Heritage week 2007Digitisation
  project to support Heritage Week 2007 focussed on
  highlighting our collection strengths in Pacific
  exploration, voyaging and historyhttp//www.cant
  erbury.ac.nz/voyages/

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Issues and future initiatives

• Issues
• Space issues quality space ie space sufficient
  for purpose
• Public Records Act UC record
• Sustainability of collecting activities -
  published and unpublished collections
• Infrastructure for sustaining ongoing digital
  initiatives
• Future initiatives
• Lottery Boards Grants
• Further collaboration with Matapihi
• Digital collaboration with ANZ
• Collaboration with other local collecting
  institutions Museum. Christchurch City
  Libraries, CCC
• Promotion of collections to academic departments
  with UC
• Likely to be developments at a national level
  that will impact on the way we manage our
  heritage metadata moving to national
  collaborative approach to managing our
  intellectual capital in the heritage area NRAM
  forces a shift from inventory based database to
  item level description this is also necessary
  to enhance and improve our digitisation programme