Decades of knowledge will be lost if plans to centralise New Zealand's audio and video archives go ahead, says the union for public service workers.
The Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision archives building on Taranaki St in Wellington Photo: WikiCommons
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision is proposing to move its operations in Auckland and Christchurch to its sites in the Hutt Valley and Wellington.
The archive, originally set up as the New Zealand Film Archive, incorporated the RNZ sound archive in 2012 and the TVNZ archive in 2014.
It currently employs about 80 people across Wellington, Lower Hutt, Christchurch and Auckland.
Public Service Association national secretary Erin Polaczcuk said the proposed restructure could lead to job losses and a significant loss of specialist knowledge.
She said Christchurch members had unanimously spoken out against the proposal, and staff felt disrespected and ignored after their work to recover archives in the wake of the city's earthquakes.
"This is the third round of restructuring in the four years since the film and sound archives merged, and the impact on staff can't be underestimated.
"We call on the board of trustees and the Ministry of Culture and Heritage to urgently reconsider this proposal."
Ngā Taonga said it had only just completed several weeks of consulting with staff on the proposed restructure, and no decision had been made.
It said, after incorporating the RNZ and TVNZ archives, it needed to change to ensure it was sustainable and more of the income it received went into collecting, preserving and sharing audiovisual material. It needed to make sure its people and collections were safe, it said.
The facilites in Christchurch for staff and sound collection were "temporary and makeshift since the 2011 earthquake" and, while staff had done a "good job in less than ideal conditions", the collection needed to be in a purpose-built climate-controlled vault.
It had been unable to find a suitable and affordable option there, but its facilities in the Lower Hutt suburb of Avalon had the capacity to house it.
"These are built to a high standard of earthquake and flood resilience."
As for its Auckland operations, it said there were only two permanent staff, who were in back-office roles, and there were no permanent collections there.
Under the proposals, the employees in Auckland and Christchurch would be offered the chance to relocate and supported if they chose to make the move.
A decision would be made late this week and any changes would not take place until after March next year.
Replies
Great to see this article being shared here. Just to clarify, there is a permanent collection at Auckland and until last year there was a library which was accessible by the public and a curator (Paula Booker). When she resigned she was not replaced. The permanent collection is called Nga Taonga Korero (sound treasures) and has been permanently housed in Auckland for decades (with Jim [current staff member in Auckland] working on it since 1999) – info sourced from https://web.archive.org/web/19991111162234/http://www.soundarchives.co.nz/who/home.htm and further below
The formal beginning of Nga Taonga Korero (the Treasures of Speech) as a separate collection dates from the early 1960's when the Maori section of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation was set up by Leo Fowler, with Wiremu Kerekere. Fowler's stroke of genius was to second Wiremu Kerekere to the section. Kerekere was involved with every aspect of Maori cultural activity - composer, tutor, performer and leader. The pair became a force as they travelled from marae to marae, from hui to hui - marae openings, the Coronation hui, Hui Toopu, Hui Aranga, cultural festivals both regional and national, nga tangihanga, welcomes and farewells, Waitangi, royal occasions, and Maori cultural clubs were all grist to their microphones. They saved raw and edited tapes together with the programmes compiled from them. Prior to the establishment of the Maori section, stations in the centres of Maori population saved Maori material discs and tapes which were either held locally or more often than not, sent to Sound Archives. Copies of much of this material are also held by Nga Taonga Korero. The collection was held for many years in Papatoetoe, before moving in 1985 with the associated programme unit, then known as Te Reo o Aotearoa, to its present home in Cook St, central Auckland. We pay tribute to broadcasters and technicians, station managers, programme organisers, announcers and producers who not only collected this material, but also kept it. Haere ki nga tipuna
Cheers, Emma Jean Kelly (Dr) Wellington, New Zealand