OFF THE RECORD, Number 9, 2002

Articles in the 2002 issue included:

Samuel Carnell’s photographic portraits of Ngati Kahungunu, 1870-1906. Carnell’s portraits held in the Turnbull have been assembled in a major exhibition shown first in Hastings and now in the National Library accompanied by a programme of 25 lectures on many aspects of the Ngati Kahungunu iwi (tribe).

The National Preservation Office. Since 1997 the Turnbull Library has offered support and advice to communities responsible for documentary heritage collections, including marae and iwi.

Fulbright Scholar visits. Historian Daniel Thorp is this year’s J William Fulbright Scholar in comparative US-NZ history at the Turnbull, studying New Zealand’s Pakeha Maori and the White Indians of the US and Canada.

National Library Fellow 2002. German cultural anthropologist Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich is studying immigrants’ stories of their experiences in the impressive holdings in the National Library and Turnbull Library, many of them unpublished.

CD celebrates Ngati Poneke. The Turnbull has issued a CD of classic concert party recordings made in the 1940s and early 1950s by Wellington’s Ngati Poneke Young Maori Club.

Accessing our culture online. Three important online resources have recently been launched: an e-text archive of significant New Zealand and Pacific materials in the humanities; digitised images of early New Zealand newspapers; and an online encyclopaedia of New Zealand (a companion to the online Dictionary of NZ Biography).

Remembering Elsie Locke (1912-2001). A tribute to this writer and political activist whose papers have been bequeathed to the Turnbull.

Katherine Mansfield comes home. A collection of once-treasured possessions of writer Katherine Mansfield including manuscripts, photographs, letters and a tress of her hair has been acquired by the Turnbull at a London auction.

The Hugh Price Collection. Wellington publisher Hugh Price has donated to the Turnbull his important collection of New Zealand educational texts published between 1860 and 1960.

Appointment of Maori oral historian. Taina McGregor has taken up the new post of oral historian, Maori, at the Turnbull, to assist Maori groups and individuals recording oral histories.

The Library hits the road. Diane Woods has been appointed as the Turnbull’s first field librarian, to assist potential donors and vendors, making them aware of the importance of materials they possess.

Microforms support Turnbull collections. The Turnbull holds the only NZ subscriptions to several major international full-text microform publications that can support the Library’s special printed collections.