The Utaina project — from shelf to digitisation

The Utaina project is now in full swing, digitising audiovisual material from our collection — as well as from Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa National Library and Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision.

In October 2022, we sent our first shipment of audiovisual items to our digitisation partner Memnon based in Motutawa Avalon, Lower Hutt. A year on, 3 formats — 1-inch video, 2-inch video and Betacam SP — have completed digitisation. The next 4 — vinyl, audiocassettes, VHS and sepmag — are in full production. By early next year we’ll also begin digitising shellac, lacquer, and open reel audio tapes.

Ensuring the safety of our holdings is critical. Detailed planning goes into the logistics and tracking of each item — as well as their physical protection during transport and digitisation.

We carefully package each item that’s sent to Memnon for digitisation. This involves packing items securely within transport crates with foam wrapping to make sure they will not be damaged by any jolts or bumps during their journey. Prior to sending, all items are scanned into the project’s tracking tool and have their locations updated on the relevant collection management system.

The video shows staff members scanning each item into their relevant transport box. The transport box is then assigned to the pallet and the pallet to the shipment. This detailed tracking means that we record the exact location and the history of each item’s movements.

Care and long-term preservation of these taonga has been central to the planning of the project. We consider the 10 agents of deterioration when planning. We highlight 1 of these (risk of disassociation) in the video, showing the team carefully separating supporting materials — everything from promotional posters to loose production notes — from the audiovisual items sent to Memnon for digitisation.

Disassociation can occur when parts of an item become separated or the links between them are lost, for example, during transit and digitisation. It could result in the loss of context or understanding of the item as a whole. While the audiovisual items are being digitised, we keep the supporting material onsite at Archives New Zealand and the National Library — clearly labelled and stored until the item is returned. Upon return, our team reunite the supporting materials with the corresponding audiovisual item. Both can then be reshelved back to their permanent location.

After digitisation, our quality control technicians assess the digitised files to ensure they’re an accurate copy of the physical items. Often our technicians will closely listen to and view these digitised items to identify anything that does not appear to be inherent to the original item. They’ll listen and look for things like muffled audio, video dropouts, and distortion.

Once a batch of items is returned to Archives New Zealand and the National Library, our teams will scan these items to track their locations in our collection management systems, reunite them with any supporting material and reshelve them in their respective repositories. At this point, the digital files will also make their way into our digital preservation systems.

Once ingested, the files are linked to their management system records and held safely in our digital preservation repository. Our audiovisual holdings include some items which have access restrictions, and those restrictions are also applied to the digital files. Other items which are open access will be fully accessible, as shown in the video.

The road safety commercial shown in the video was a government-produced ad campaign to promote the use of seatbelts starring Sir Dave Dobbyn (R21908663). Such videos capture a record of changing attitudes and contemporary trends of the time.

This item has now completed its digitisation journey as part of Utaina, having been packed and transported to Memnon, digitised, quality checked, and returned to its home location in our repository. As a result, the digital record of the item is available to view on Collections search and the cultural history encapsulated by this taonga is preserved for generations to come.

Over the next 2 years, the Utaina project will continue to digitise audiovisual materials held by Archives New Zealand, the National Library and Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision. As we progress, digital records will become available on our respective database systems, available for access by interested researchers and the general public. Each item digitised is another piece of Aotearoa New Zealand’s history that is preserved, capturing this heritage for New Zealand's future generations.