Digitally Chinese
Auckland Public Libraries & NZ Chinese Association Auckland

http://chinesecommunity.org.nz/

At the LIANZA conference in Christchurch I attended the Digitally Chinese presentation. Please have a read below, or better yet have a look at their website. It was a great presentation and their website or kete is a good example of what we can do with our kete next year!

What is it? (In their own words)
The Chinese Digital Community is a community website jointly produced by the NZ Chinese Association and Auckland City Libraries. ‘The website contains historical and contemporary information, articles, images, audio, video, documents and web links about New Zealand’s Chinese community, anyone and everyone can be part of this online community and contribute to the website’.

It was built as a storage facility to preserve the heritage of New Zealand’s Chinese people, and it is hoped that the website will grow to become a rich Chinese resource, and in turn a useful research tool for family history enthusiasts.
All information entered onto the website will be safely stored for future generations by Auckland City Libraries.

Some of the ‘eggs’ featured in the kete are:

Clubs and organisations
Social Life and customs
Arts and culture
Sport and recreation
Local history
Family stories
Architecture
Digitised Chinese Language Journals
Online exhibition (such as Archive NZ images)

Can you use it as a private repository?
You can put items into the kete that only you or people you designate can view (they go to a private locked area) as well as posting images and articles that any member of the public can view.

As well as containing information and images provided by the public, the kete also contains links to Auckland City Libraries’ catalogues and websites that library staff have selected for various topics.

Web 2.0 tools
The kete has RSS feeds so you know when new items are added to the kete. It has Google maps so you can locate cemetery plots or specific places mentioned in the stories. There are also social networking tools such as the places for discussion.

The Chinese Digital Community was inspired by Kete Horowhenua. ‘Kete Horowhenua is a knowledge basket of images, audio, video and documents which are collected and catalogued by the community’ http://horowhenua.kete.net.nz/

How can we use this project for our own libraries?
Tasman District Libraries are soon to get our own kete and we can use the Chinese Digital Community model as inspiration. It would be good if we could do a similar project with the local German communities as a spring board for our kete. There is certainly a lot of useful material out in our communities.

Louise