The catalogue records for a number of new Library DVDs show that they are part of a “Departmental Collection on indefinite loan to Te Puna Toi at Theatre & Film Studies”. They are all non-requestable and have to be viewed in-house at Te Puna Toi.

The 120+ DVDs were sourced from the Centre for Performance Research (CPR) in Wales. This specially curated collection includes recordings of Europe’s most innovative contemporary dance and theatre companies and artists, including: Forced Entertainment, DV8 Dance Theatre, Goat Island, Tadeusz Kantor, Odin Teatret, Cricot Teatr, Need Company, Heiner Goebels, Wim Vandekeybus, Hotel Pro Forma, Bobby Baker, Gob Squad, Quarantine, Jan Lauwers, Societas Raffaello Sanzio, and Pina Bausch. (If you are fortunate enough to have seen Wim Wenders’ Pina, the absolutely stunning 3D film of Bausch’s choreography performed by the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch ensemble, which screened at the Christchurch International Film Festival in August, that would have provided an insight into the outstanding calibre of performance in the CPR collection generally.)

So how did the CPR collection arrangement come about? As the DVDs were funded by the Library, a strong case could surely be made for them to be treated the same way as all our other DVDs and housed within the Library. However, the purchase was made with the intention of locating them in the dedicated Te Puna Toi facilities, as agreed in 2010 between Associate Professor Sharon Mazer (TAFS Programme Co-ordinator) and Gail Pattie and Cynthia Bishell.

Te Puna Toi was originally to be in the Arts Centre, but with the quake devastation forcing the Arts Centre’s closure, Te Puna Toi was relocated to Theatre and Film Studies on campus, at least through 2012 and the indefinite future.

There has been a bit of a saga around these DVDs. When the two boxes of them arrived, they were stored on Level 5 – but before they could be catalogued and processed the February 22nd quake struck, the James Hight building was evacuated, Library people weren’t allowed back in, and the DVDs were to all intents and purposes ‘lost on Level 5’ for half a year or more. Finally, on September 13th, a small but intrepid search party consisting of Simon and Chris from Library Support Services, aided and abetted by myself and under the mandatory supervision of security personnel, managed with no small amount of clambering over things and dogged perseverance to find the boxes hidden amongst the shambolic disarray of Level 5.

The vast majority of the CPR DVDs have now been catalogued (thanks to Nicole and Alison), the technical details of how to deal with them on the system have been ironed out (thanks to Peter K.), and they have been handed over to Te Puna Toi on long term loan. The viewing facilities are in TAFS Seminar Room 10C, on Level 2 of the Fine Arts Complex. Bookings can be made by emailing TePunaToi@canterbury.ac.nz. To browse individual titles, see the browse list on the TAFS guide.

The New Zealand Film Archive Medianet facility will also be accessible at Te Puna Toi. Medianet offers a range of New Zealand documentaries, old television commercials, short films, experimental films, and more.

Max

If you’ve used eTV recently, you will have noticed this start-up message:

“Attention: eTV is currently in the transition to a new recording system. Due to this our International Channels are temporarily unavailable to record from. There may also be delays with shows coming onto site after their broadcast date. Please bear with us – we will resume normal service soon!”

This effectively seems to mean that, while older programmes are still there and watchable, very little that’s new has been recorded for the last month or two or even longer – despite the fact that new documentaries are airing every day on the international and national channels accessible via eTV.

Last week I asked Gresham Bradley, eTV Manager, how long it would be before normal service resumes, and he replied:

“We have just been able to start clearing the backlog of recorded programmes from the prolonged switchover of our recording hardware all in the past month. It was supposed to be a one week process but that did not happen as you can see. You should see a heap of November recordings come online in the next week. For example over 200 programmes were encoded in just the past 2 days through our new encoding server which is incredibly powerful. So, sorry about the delays but you will see MUCH higher quality in the videos from now on and a faster response online as well.”

As yet I haven’t detected any improvement, but I expect it will be working properly again by early next year, hopefully sooner.

Max

Just have had two attempts at opening an ELib book and have been unsuccessful
Please can someone check to see if this is a general problem?

The Library has trial access to ARTstor until 30 April 2011. What is ARTstor? “ARTstor is a nonprofit digital library of more than one million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and social sciences with a suite of software tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes.”

For access to the database, click ARTstor, then “Enter the ARTstor digital library”. For information about this trial, go to the Database Trials page.

Liaison librarians, if you have any academics who might be interested, please let them know, and your own feedback would be appreciated too, if you have time to try it.

Max

One of the engineers who was visiting the Central Library this afternoon lost a dark brown clipboard and may have mislaid it somewhere on Level 2. I had a look round but couldn’t find it. If it turns up, please contact Fred Turner on: 021 474 237.

Max

This film database is being trialled until 22 September. FIAF Plus includes the full text from many of the most important film journals. As film is of quite wide academic interest, would information librarians please inform any of their academic staff who might be interested. We have no current databases specifically covering film literature.

Max

Just drawing your attention to the e-books display in the Central Library – see news item on the homepage. Feel free to add your comments!
Max

… for being the lead story on the front page of The Press today! Brilliant!

May the force be with you!

Max

From today’s UC Diary:

Max Podstolski: My Art Instinct
Tuesday 6 April, 5.30pm — COCA Gallery (Centre of Contemporary Art), 66 Gloucester Street

Opening at COCA Gallery (Centre of Contemporary Art) is an exhibition of new paintings by Max Podstolski entitled: My Art Instinct. Professor Denis Dutton will give a short talk about the art instinct at the opening. The COCA exhibition will run until April 27. Running concurrently at the Observatory Art Room, Arts Centre (next to the Salamander Gallery), is an exhibition of smaller works from April 1-19. A catalogue to accompany the exhibitions will be available at both galleries. This includes a preface by Dr Warren Feeney, COCA Director, and essays by Dr Beatriz Caballero Rodríguez, of the Spanish Programme, whose research interest is 20th century Spanish philosophy, and David Kahn, who tutors in Art History and Theory. The works can be viewed online at: www.primitivebirdgroup.co.nz/maxstart.html

The Mass Communication & Journalism programme has changed its name to Media and Communication and Journalism.
As that is rather a mouthful, the Library subject guide has been changed to something a little shorter: Media, Communication, Journalism.

Max