Te Ara Hiko

Launch of Te Ara

On 8 February 2005 Te Ara was formally launched into cyberspace by Prime Minister and Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Helen Clark.

It was a most enjoyable occasion in the Soundings Theatre at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington. Tumu Te Heuheu of Ngāti Tūwharetoa launched the Māori-language version. There were live video links (with the assistance of the Ministry of Education) to six schools around the country. The students gave lively, amusing and brief presentations about the origins and culture of the people in their region. General Editor Jock Phillips presented the features of the site to a very attentive audience. The technology behaved impeccably: Te Ara was live, bringing to fruition 31 months of dedicated work.

Te Ara wins a GOVIS ‘Buzzie’ award

At the May 2005 Government Information System Managers’ Forum conference, Te Ara was awarded a ‘Buzzie’ in the Technology and Society’category.

The Buzzies are peer recognition awards intended to celebrate individual, team and organisational success, and foster innovation and creativity. We are extremely pleased that the project has received this recognition. Jock Phillips and Ross Somerville attended the awards celebration. Unfortunately the handsome award – a gilded Buzzy Bee atop a golden Beehive – lost a wing on its way home with Jock on a wet and stormy night, but it is still an impressive ornament at the Te Ara office.

Progress on Earth, Sea and Sky

Te Ara’s second theme will be launched in 2006.

Earth, Sea and Sky consists of about 120 entries, divided into nine topic groups. These are:

• Climate and atmosphere
• Geology
• Marine environment
• Mineral resources
• Natural hazards
• People and the sea
• Seabirds
• Sea life
• Sky

Work flow

To enable the resource team to focus on particular topic groups, and to assist the institutions that supply the images and other resources, we have divided the Earth, Sea and Sky entries into several batches of about 20.

The first two batches are now almost complete – from writing, checking and editing to resourcing, and are undergoing final checks. They have been uploaded to our in-house website, and once some new designs are completed we will advise contributors that these are ready for review. For this and subsequent themes authors will check and approve their entries online, using a URL and password.

We are now working on two more batches, set out below. We’d be grateful if collecting institutions could prioritise any orders from Te Ara for material relating to these topics. If they have particularly strong or notable collections in any of these areas, we would be very pleased to hear about them.

Earth, Sea and Sky – Batch 3

• Aerial recreation
• Air crashes
• Albatrosses
• Atmosphere
• Aviation
• Charting the sea floor
• Coastal erosion
• Fishing industry
• Gulls, skuas and terns
• Hot springs, mud pools and geysers
• Life in hot springs
• Life in the fiords
• Ocean currents and tides
• Penguins
• Ports and harbours
• Sealing
• Seals
• Tsunamis
• Waka – canoes
• Whaling

Earth, Sea and Sky – Batch 4

• Beachcombing
• Bird migration
• Climate
• Engineering on the sea floor
• Future climate
• Geological exploration
• Herons
• Historic volcanic activity
• Lighthouses
• Magnetic field
• Natural hazards
• Pounamu – New Zealand jade
• Shipwrecks
• Te hī ika – fishing
• Thermal pools and spas
• Time
• Weather
• Weather forecasting
• Whenua – how the land was shaped
• Yachting

Beachcombing

Our recent call to the community for interesting (or appalling) tales about things found on the beach has brought us a fine collection.

These will be published as part of Te Ara’s Earth, Sea and Sky theme in 2006. Contributors told of discoveries as various as whale remnants, elephant skeletons, empty and not-so-empty bottles, even a human skull.

Our next call will be for stories about natural disasters. We will be seeking accounts of what happened ‘when disaster struck’ – in August we will announce this in the News section of the Te Ara website.

Electronic catalogue records

At its recent meeting Te Ara’s Pātaka Committee recommended that we ask contributing institutions to provide a catalogue record of resources in electronic form wherever possible.

This will greatly assist us and reduce the likelihood of transcription or other errors. If you already maintain electronic catalogue records we will be happy to receive copies of the relevant files. We have also designed a simple form for institutions who do not currently have electronic records. If institutions can supply as much of this information as possible, this will help us to maintain a consistent and accurate approach to the description and crediting of resources.

Hard to find

The resources team is having trouble finding any images of sharks that do not cost an arm and a leg (if you’ll pardon the expression).

Another elusive subject is the bearded mussel – it’s the beard (Amphisbetia minima, the hairy growth on mussel shells, which actually consists of chains of tiny polyps) that we’re interested in. We would appreciate any tips on where we might source suitable images.

Places

The resources team is beginning to collect material for Te Ara’s first release of material in the Places theme later this year.

Entries have been written by Claudia Orange, Malcolm McKinnon and John Wilson for Northland, Bay of Plenty, Manawatū and Canterbury. Each region will be covered in two parts – a general introduction to the geography, history, economy and environment, and a gazetteer of particular localities and places of interest or significance. Further regions will be featured progressively.

Site updates

A small-scale update was done in early June.

This consisted of 30-odd small corrections reported to us by users. All reported corrections are checked by Te Ara’s research and writing team and approved by Jock Phillips before they are uploaded. A number of minor corrections and amendments were made in late March 2005.

Nine ‘Māori Origins and Arrivals’ entries (including Pacific migrations and Canoe traditions) have now been translated into te reo Māori and will be uploaded shortly. We are working towards translation of the eight New Zealand In Brief entries.

Site traffic

Our statistical reports show a continuing rise in the number of people accessing the site.

Assisted by the fact that the site is now fairly thoroughly indexed by Google and other search engines, there has been a considerable increase in site visitors since the launch in February.

It is clear from the daily statistics that schools and educational users represent a sizeable proportion of visitors, as weekday numbers are significantly higher than at weekends, and peak hours of use are between 9 am and 5 pm.

In four months the site has had nearly 150,000 unique visitors and delivered nearly 80 gigabytes of data. Most visitors are from New Zealand, and the most ‘hit’ pages are the Search page and the Home page. Daily unique visitors have now topped 3,500. June saw over 30,000 unique visitors in its first two weeks – already 20% more than the total for the whole of May.

Flash

Web designer Helene Coulson and our technology partners Shift and Optimation are currently working on a way to include interactives and animations to enrich Te Ara.

Helene will be able to produce layered graphics and rollover labels, among other enhancements, to assist in communicating the sometimes quite complex content in the Earth, Sea and Sky theme. Look out for living estuaries, pulsating earthquakes and a where-not-to-be of shark attacks in New Zealand.

Feedback on the site

We welcome comments and suggestions about Te Ara, and invite people to fill out a short questionnaire. The information will help us to develop and enhance the site.

Staff news

Since our last newsletter...

• Science writer Gerard Hutching departed for life in Rome, about which he sends us occasional bulletins.
• Māori Editor Rangi McGarvey was farewelled late in 2004.
• Basil Keane joined the project as Māori editor. Basil has degrees in law and Māori Studies. He has Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne and Ngā Puhi tribal links.
• Alastair McLean, resource researcher, has degrees in zoology and anthropology and comes to Te Ara from Te Papa.
• Janette Hart is now copyright officer for the project.
• Fiona Oliver, production editor, is now officially a fulltime member of the team.
• Kynan Gentry has joined part-time to assist with resources research, writing and checking.
• We have welcomed back Malcolm McKinnon, who will be preparing and overseeing further entries in the Places theme.

For more on the members of the team, look here.