About the NZETC

The New Zealand Electronic Text Centre has four aims:

• To create a digital library providing open access to significant New Zealand and Pacific Island texts and materials. This encompasses both digitised heritage material and born-digital resources:
• To effectively partner with other organisations, as a collaborator and service provider, on a variety of digitisation and digital content projects;
• To build a wider community skilled in the use and creation of digital materials through teaching and training activities and by publishing and presenting the results of research;
• To work at the intersection of computing tools with textual material and investigate how these tools may be used to make new knowledge from our cultural inheritance.

Acting on these goals, NZETC is engaged in an ongoing programme of digitisation and hosts an expanding online library. The standards-based collection is delivered through an Open Source framework and offers full and free access to a range of materials in multiple formats for download or online browsing. Today the NZETC collection contains over 2,600 texts (around 65,000 pages) and receives over 10,000 visits each day. Information on the NZETC selection policy for digitisation is available here.

Since it was created in 2002, the NZETC has worked successfully with a range of partners on a variety of external projects. More information about those projects can be found here. As part of Victoria University of Wellington Library, one of the Centre's key relationships is with the wider University. A large part of the funding for the Centre is provided by the University, and the NZETC works closely with Library colleagues and academic staff to identify and deliver digital content which will support research within the institution. The NZETC actively collaborates with VUW staff and students on digital humanities research projects. NZETC staff undertake teaching work in digital resource management and electronic publishing, and support internships within the Centre for students wishing to learn about various aspects of digital text.

The NZETC is a founding contributing partner in the Matapihi project. We are active members of the National Digital Forum, the Text Encoding Initiative Consortium, and the Australia New Zealand Digital Encyclopedias Group.