On 19 October I was lucky to attend a hui held at National Library in Wellington (I was standing in for Nekerangi who was invited but unable to attend).  The hui was hosted by Paul Diamond, Curator, Māori, and Melanie Lovell-Smith, Digitisation Advisor, to discuss the digitisation of pre-1900 published texts in te reo Māori. Only a small number were able to attend due to the event being adjacent to Labour Weekend, but there was still alot of valuable discussion.

This was the first step for National Library staff to consult on an idea to digitise the corpus of work listed in the bibliography Books in Māori/Ngā Tānga reo Māori 1821-1900, compiled in the Alexander Turnbull Library in 2004(http://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE26190530

They were interested in peoples’ views on whether the bibliography is a good starting point, and what type of digital access is most useful (e.g. full text, quality images, type of metadata etc). The works included in the bibliography generally fall into religious texts, government publications, and language related works, with a small amount of works published by iwi. This was one of the most prolific periods of publishing in te reo Māori, which was more widely spoken in Aotearoa at that time. Those involved in the project intend to broaden their consultation and arrange more hui (hopefully one in Te Waipounamu). I personally got alot out of the hui, including the chance to meet colleagues from around Aotearoa…and to practice my mihi!

It was interesting timing for us at MB as the Resource Discovery Librarians are  currently working with Nekerangi and Caroline on cataloguing the Chapple collection of early religious texts which include many written in te Reo Māori as well as a variety of Pacific Languages. We have been considering digitisation as a next step, so the hui was useful in thinking about how we might proceed.

Below is an image of some of the taonga from the Alexander Turnbull collection that was presented for us to view. A real treat!