The National Digital Forum (NDF) website is up and happening. The purpose of the site is to provide information about the NDF and to serve as a "one stop shop" of quality assured information for New Zealand's cultural heritage professionals.
National Digital Forum

The National Digital Forum (NDF) website is up and happening. The purpose of the site is to provide information about the NDF and to serve as a "one stop shop" of quality assured information for New Zealand's cultural heritage professionals.
National Digital Forum

The National Digital Forum was established at an event hosted by the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa in May 2002. Representatives from a number of 'memory institutions' met to discuss the challenges involved in creating and delivering New Zealand cultural resources in digital form.

Since that time a Steering Committee with representatives from museums, archives, art galleries, libraries, government and the private sector has been meeting regularly to identify national opportunities for collaboration and information sharing.

The next National Digital Forum event will be held at Te Papa on 29-30 September 2003. Details of this event will be made available shortly.

AIMS AND CONTENT OF THE SITE

The NDF site aims to provide information that is
- accessible
- accurate
- relevant to New Zealand but informed by international developments, and
- representative of the range of organisations across the cultural heritage sector.

The site is aimed at anyone in New Zealand libraries, archives, museums and galleries who wants to develop their professional knowledge about how to create, deliver and preserve digital cultural heritage materials.

Content on the site includes:

Register of Digitisation Initiatives
- A central source of information about New Zealand digitisation projects

Information resources
- Policies and guidelines, and technical and metadata standards that will make your NZ content world class.
- Pointers to training resources and relevant conference papers and articles
- Mailing lists and links that will give you plenty of avenues for further exploration

Toolkit
- Document templates and other planning tools

The site was developed for the NDF by the National Library of New Zealand and will be hosted by the Library and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. The Library would particularly like to acknowledge the contribution of Rose Holley (University of Auckland) to the initial assessment of content for the site.

A cross-sectoral editorial team will select new content using criteria that are available at the site. Suggestions for resources to include on the site are welcome and can be submitted using the online contact form.

FURTHER INFORMATION

For more information about the National Digital Forum or about the NDF website, please contact ndf@natlib.govt.nz

Sam Searle
Digital Library Projects Leader
National Library of New Zealand
Tel: +64 4 474 3032