August 2022 marks the 21st anniversary of the initial release of Papers Past. It is regarded as a go-to site for researchers, genealogists, students, and all with an interest in our history. The range of uses and impact the website has had on research in New Zealand is vast.
Join the National Library in person or online for a panel discussion with speakers from a variety of careers and backgrounds, each of whom have a unique perspective to share on using Papers Past.
Date: Thursday 18 August 2022, 5pm to 7pm
Location: Taiwhanga Kauhau — Auditorium, (lower ground) National Library Wellington. Entrance on Aitken Street.
Light refreshments will be served from 5pm and the discussion panel will begin at 5:30pm.
Can’t make it in person? This event will also be delivered using Zoom. Follow the link to register to attend online: https://dia-nz.zoom.us/…/regi…/WN_2-X9regpQ5KqbfvKjO0VTQ
About the speakers
Paul Diamond (Ngāti Hauā, Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) was appointed as Curator, Māori at the Alexander Turnbull Library in 2011. He is the author of three books (A Fire in Your Belly, Huia 2003; Makereti: taking Māori to the World, Random House NZ 2007; and Savaged to Suit: Māori and Cartooning in New Zealand, Fraser Books 2018), and has also worked as an oral historian and broadcaster. In 2017 Paul was awarded Creative New Zealand’s Berlin Writer’s Residency to complete a book about Charles Mackay, a mayor of Whanganui who was killed in the 1929 May Day riots in Berlin. Downfall: the destruction of Charles Mackay will be published in November by Massey University Press, and made extensive use of Papers Past.
An archivist by day and author by night, Jared Davidson is an award-winning writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. His most recent books include Dead Letters: Censorship and Subversion in New Zealand 1914-1920 (Otago University Press, 2019) and The History of a Riot (Bridget Williams Books, 2021). Blood and Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand is due out in early 2023. Before joining the Alexander Turnbull Library as the Research Librarian, Manuscripts in 2021, Jared was a Senior Archivist at Archives New Zealand. @anrchivist
Ian F Grant has, as a researcher and writer, used Papers Past extensively for a number of years. He has also, over the last decade, made digitising recommendations and written introductory essays for over 40 newspapers on the Papers Past website. An original National Business Review director, he founded the NZ Cartoon Archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library in 1992, and was the ATL’s first adjunct scholar. The most recent of his 16 books is the first volume of the history of New Zealand newspapers, Lasting Impressions: The story of New Zealand newspapers, 1840-1920. He is currently working on the second volume. Papers Past was vital in researching the country’s newspaper heritage in more detail than has been possible before.
Dr Arini Loader (Ngāti Raukawa te au ki te tonga) is a senior lecturer in Māori history whose research is based on written and oral te reo Māori texts. In 2019, alongside Michael Ross and Ngāti Hauā whānui, she produced a short film exploring familial bonds over time via the medium of waiata. A second film is forthcoming. A language, literary, history, indigenous and Māori studies scholar, Arini is about to begin work on a Marsden-funded project, Ngā Hanganga Mātua o te Whakaako Hitori: Critical Pedagogies for History Educators in Aotearoa New Zealand with Nepia Mahuika (Ngāti Porou), Richard Manning (Ngāti Pākehā) and Veronica Tawhai (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Uepohatu). She suffers occasional bouts of cacoethes scribendi.
Dr Sydney J Shep is Reader in Book History and the Printer at Wai-te-ata Press: Te Whare Tā O Wai-te-ata at Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. She focuses on the interdisciplinary study of transnational and cross-cultural book history and print culture in the contexts of the history of empire, history of technology, and the history of reading. Past research projects include studies of typographer and printer Robert Coupland Harding as well as William Colenso and the Victorian Republic of Letters. Her work is grounded in the theories, methods, and practices of digital humanities, spatial history, and cultural informatics. Sydney is also a practising letterpress printer, exhibiting book artist, and designer bookbinder who undertakes creative research commissions at Wai-te-ata Press
This event is one of three discussion panels to celebrate the 21st anniversary of Papers Past.
Papers Past turns 21: Panel discussion — Christchurch
Date: Monday 12 September 2022, 12pm to 2pm
Location: Spark Place (ground floor), Tūranaga, 60 Cathedral Square, Christchurch
Papers Past turns 21: Panel discussion — Auckland
Date: Friday 30 September 2022, 12pm to 2pm
Location: Whare Wananga, Level 2, Auckland Central City Library, 44-46 Lorne Street, Auckland
For more information and to RSVP visit the National Library website here.