9 Whiringa-ā-nuku 2024
Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga Archives New Zealand,
10 Mulgrave Street, Wellington
Phone +64 499 5595
Craig Innes
Website
s www.archives.govt.nz
[email address]
www.dia.govt.nz
E te rangatira e Craig, tēnā koe
Complaint about Collections Search and access to archives
Thank you for your email, received on 20 August 2024, to the Secretary of Te Tari
Taiwhenua Department of Internal Affairs (Te Tari Taiwhenua), Paul James, making a
complaint about Collections Search and access to archives. As your complaint falls within my
remit as Chief Archivist, it has been sent to me for response.
I note that your complaint was initially submitted through fyi.org.nz in June this year. Due to
an administrative oversight, your complaint was not responded to at the same time as the
Official Information Act requests you submitted at that time. I apologise for the delay in
providing you with a response.
You have written that Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga Archives New Zealand (Te Rua
Mahara) is failing to meet our obligations under section 47 of the Public Records Act 2005
(the Act) to provide access to public records.
Section 47 of the Act states, in summary, that an open access record must be made
available for inspection free of charge as soon as is reasonably practicable.
The means by which we provide access to archives free of charge is our Reading Rooms in
Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. Over 2 million digitised open access items
are also available online through Collections Search, at no cost.
Funding for our digitisation programme Te Maeatanga, including Te whakamatihiko ā-tono
Digitisation on demand paid service, was time limited through to 30 June 2024 with no
further funding available. Te Rua Mahara will continue to look for other avenues of
sustainable, assured funding to bring digitisation back online in the future.
I am confident that Collections Search makes the public records in our care discoverable.
The keyword search and filtering system supports users to find records, and additional fields
can be added in the advanced search.
Kia pono ai te rua Mahara – Enabling trusted government information
Auckland Regional Office, 95 Richard Pearse Drive, Mangere, Auckland
Christchurch Regional Office, 15 Harvard Avenue, Wigram, Christchurch
Dunedin Regional Office, 556 George Street, Dunedin
Te Rua Mahara acknowledges that since the replacement of the Archway database with
Collections Search, some researchers have faced barriers with using the system, and it has
been frustrating for many. We are invested in improving Collections and continue to work
with the vendor on updates and enhancements.
Our kaimahi and volunteers continue to list and describe more and more records each day,
which are then added to the Collections database to make our holdings more accessible.
Public records can also be identified in other ways, including manual systems such as finding
aids, indexes, and registers. You can find out more through our Research guidance on our
webpage
at https://www.archives.govt.nz/research-guidance.
We also encourage the use of our ‘Ask an Archivist’ service so our Archivists can perform a
search and provide an export of records. This service is available on our webpage at
https://www.archives.govt.nz/about-us/services-we-offer/ask-an-archivist.
Thank you again for writing.
Ngā mihi, nā
Anahera Morehu
Poumanaaki Chief Archivist
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