A new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been entered into between UC and Antarctic New Zealand regarding the management of the Antarctic Collection.

Since 1999, the Library has administered the Antarctic Collection on behalf of Antarctica New Zealand. The MoU had not been revised since its original drafting in 1999. It was out-of-date and included restrictive clauses, which hindered the effective management of collection by UC. The Library also has two separate collections on this area, one belonging to UC and the other Antarctica New Zealand.

An impending movement of the collection to the EPS Library (in 2017) as part of the Education Library preparation, provided an opportunity to review how we managed the collection and the MoU. The Library particularly wished to integrate the two collections to make them easier to use.

To help the review, various meetings took place between the Library and

* Dean of College of Science
* Gateway Antarctica
* Antarctic New Zealand

The result of these discussions were

* An exhibition in EPS Library of Antarctic material (joint venture with Gateway Antarctica – proposed to continue annually) to coincide with Antarctic Week
* A revised MoU, which allows the integration of the Antarctica NZ collection into the main collection