Monday 5 May, 2008

Archives bring history to life

Rosemary O'Neill Fights in High Street, high-ranking officers caught out and the antics of sports clubs – no not a jaunt through Monday’s copy of The Press – but a dive into the archives at the Aotearoa New Zealand Centre at Christchurch City Libraries. This week is Archives and Records week and this edition highlights the many archival resources available to the public online and in libraries.

Information specialist Rosemary O’Neil says archives are documents that help explain culture and society as it was and as has changed over the years.
“Our objective is to provide documentation of a society – of Christchurch life,” she says. Read the interview with Rosemary.

Burke's Manuscript Burke’s manuscript is a lively account of Christchurch life in the 1850s and 1860s which also contains drawings and caricatures of local identities. Read more about William Burke and the manuscript itself.

This week in Christchurch history

A handy feature for those keen to find out about local history is the Christchurch Chronology on the library website. Here’s a selection of what happened in Christchurch this week in history:

May 4, 1981 New southern arterial (Brougham Street to Curletts Road) opens.
May 5, 1863 Christchurch Gas Company formed.
May 6, 1939 New Municipal Electricity Department building opens.
May 7, 1917 Canterbury Aviation Company makes first flights from Sockburn Aerodrome, New Zealand’s first airport.
May 8, 1945 V.E. (Victory in Europe) day celebrations.
May 8, 1975 New Zealand’s first mini roundabout in operation at the corner of Riccarton Road and Deans Avenue.
May 9, 1915 Four times Wimbledon champion Captain A. F. Wilding killed in action in Belgium.
May 10, 1975 Ms Vicki Buck becomes the city’s (and New Zealand’s) youngest ever City Councillor at 19.

New embarkation lists

A new series of passengers lists has been made available online to the public this week. They mainly list immigrants who came to Canterbury with the help of the Canterbury Provincial Government from 1856-1870, and the Central Government from 1870-1874. These lists are most likely clerk's copies. The original items are held in the Christchurch City Libraries archives collection. More information about finding passenger lists can be found in the Family History guide.

New Digital maps

Maps provide a unique insight into our region as it has developed. This new collection of digitised maps can be viewed thumbnails or as larger images but also include a Zoomify function so that you can enlarge them in the page. Take a test run.

We recommend: Archives and records resources

Our online resources:

Guide to Christchurch City Libraries' Archives Collections
The Aotearoa New Zealand Centre – where many of the archives and records are kept.
Our community information directory CINCH provides contact details for Christchurch and North Canterbury historical associations. See our website for links to museums and historicalassociations throughout the country.

We have digitised a number of items from our archives & ephemera collections:

Maps: a collection of historical maps mostly of Christchurch and Canterbury.
Images: images of early Christchurch and Canterbury that have been.
1906 New Zealand International Exhibition: The New Zealand International Exhibition held in Christchurch 1906-7 showcased art and culture from around the world and had nearly 2 million visitors.
Burke manuscript: a lively hand-written account of Christchurch events and personalities during the 1850s and 1860s.
Canterbury Police Gazette: the Canterbury Police Gazette was published monthly from 1863 until 1876. They contain lists of stolen items and of other crimes, warrants of arrest with descriptions of the criminals, lists of apprehensions for the month, and of discharges from gaols, and results from court trials.
The Christchurch Star and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 1963: preoccupation with the Christchurch Star connection intensified with the release in 1992 of Oliver Stone's movie JFK, which uses, as part of its evidence, the front page of the Star of 23 November 1963.
Lyttelton Times: the first issue of the fledgling colony's first newspaper.
Norfolk Island diary and other jottings, World War II, 1941-1943. notebook diary written by George Whitley, N.Z.E. (Corps of Royal New Zealand Engineers), who was posted to Norfolk Island during World War II. Diary begins in September 1942 and ends in April 1943.

Our Internet Gateway recommends:

New Zealand archives and records links from the Internet Gateway including
- Christchurch & Canterbury archives
- New Zealand Church Archives
Links to local and research libraries
Links to a wide range of museum websites
Links for New Zealand family historians
Te Rua Manara o te Kāwanatanga Archives New Zealand
Papers past: online versions of a number of nineteenth century New Zealand newspapers.

Browse the resources in our libraries:

Search our catalogue for items in our Archive collection
Newspapers: we hold back runs of many Canterbury papers, including a complete run of The Press and the Lyttelton Times, and short runs of the Nelson Daily Examiner and West Coast Times plus others available on microfilm.
There are microfiche indexes to the Lyttelton Times or The Press from 1861-1994, and an online Papers Database, which covers The Press from 1995 and The Star from 14 October 1998.
Microfilmed newspapers are also available from the National Library through interlibrary loan.

We recommend: Online resources

What’s new on the blog

The Christchurch City Libraries blog is written for people who love books, movies and music and want to know about the latest developments and trends in the book world. Regularly updated and constantly fresh, the blog has plenty to offer avid readers and music fans. Recent posts include:

What’s new on the library website?

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Next week: Auckland Writers and Readers Festival preview

From May 14 to 18 Christchurch City Libraries staff will be attending the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival and writing up their experiences on the library blog plus conducting feature interviews. Find out more in next week's edition.