This summer, we’re taking you behind the scenes to see the work that goes into caring for our Cultural Collections and giving you access to them. This is the first of four stories.

Thomas Gulliver was an early 20th-century Auckland civil engineer, printmaker and amateur photographer. A selection of his images taken from glass plate negatives, including boating and nautical photographs, are now available online through our Manuscripts and Archives catalogue.

Providing online access to digitised images, video and audio recordings through Manuscripts and Archives has been an exciting development in 2019. This follows the catalogue’s launch in February which improved discovery of more than 1,000 archival collections.

So far, we have trialled delivering digital content through the system using three collections that contain key formats:

• Images of early 20th-century Auckland by Thomas Gulliver (1891-1933)
• Video recordings of Artists at Work by major local artist Darcy Lange
• Audio recordings of the 1985 Visual Arts Education Symposium

There is much more work to be done and not all material is suitable for online delivery, but I’m looking forward to seeing more of our collections appearing on Manuscripts and Archives in future.

Search Manuscripts and Archives

William Hamill,
Digital Collections Specialist, Cultural Collections

References

Robin Lush collection of Thomas Gulliver photographs, MSS and Archives FA 2018/1, 3/6/3.