Closure of Te Maeatanga Digitisation Programme and on demand service

Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga Archives New Zealand’s Te Maeatanga Digitisation programme will close on 30 June 2024.

The programme had time-limited funding through to this date and Archives New Zealand has been unable to secure ongoing funding.

This means Te whakamatihiko ā-tono Digitisation on demand service will also close. To ensure all orders can be completed by the programme’s closure at the end of June, service order requests will close on 24 May 2024. We acknowledge this news will be disappointing.

The digitisation programme has been running since 2017.

In that time, almost 2 million images of significance to Aotearoa New Zealand have been digitised and are available online for the public to access through the Government Digital Archive.

Users will need to visit reading rooms to access records that have not already been digitised. You will still be able to take images of open access records in the reading room using your own cameras. Please see our reading room guidelines for more information.

While Archives New Zealand’s physical government loans service will continue, we are not able to offer digital government loans services.

This decision is separate from the Government’s baseline reduction programme to find efficiencies in the public service. Three permanent positions in the Wellington digitisation team are proposed to be disestablished, while fixed-term agreements for Te Maeatanga kaimahi will not be extended.

Te Maeatanga Digitisation programme has enhanced the access to Archives New Zealand’s holdings. We acknowledge the importance of digitisation and will keep you updated on any announcements on future services.

If you have questions or feedback about the closure of the Te Maeatanga Digitisation programme you can contact us via oca@dia.govt.nz.