Ranulf and Amohia: "an embarrassment that no one knows what to do with"

Alfred Domett's epic poem, Ranulf and Amohia, exists as a curio in New Zealand literature, a monumental work penned by an intimate contemporary of Robert Browning that gathered fulsome praise when published in its various editions, but is these days more likely to be referred to in tones of sarcasm or exasperation.

Patrick Evans, in the 1990 Penguin History of New Zealand Literature, described it as being like "a stranded whale, the poem lies rotting on the beach of New Zealand literature, an embarrassment that no one knows what to do with". This judgement can be seen as indicative of how those interested in modern literature regard the style adopted by those poets of the mid-Victorian period and Ranulf and Amohia is these days often regarded as highly anachronistic, as Chris Hilliard observes, being supplanted in the 1930s by a literature that "entailed a triumph over the soporific effects of the old-world inheritance."


Ranulf and Amohia takes almost 100,000 words (excluding footnotes) to extemporise on the vicissitudes of the relationship between two lovers, an inter-racial couple dealing with the restrictions and conventions of their respective cultures, and does so in language that we today would euphemistically describe as "flowery" or "ornate."

However, when published it was often reviewed very favourably, with one critic going so far as to call it "the principle achievement of Australasia in poetry." We should recognise that, as impenetrable as it may seem today, it can be regarded as very much of the ilk of the mid-Victorians, and as Jane Stafford points out in her chapter on Domett in Maoriland: New Zealand Literature 1872-1914, Ranulf and Amohia was similar in a number of ways to Browning's Sordello, the difference being that the first was received warmly by the critics while the latter was not.

At least up to the point of his departure for New Zealand, where he was eventually to rise to the office of Premier in 1862, Domett can be regarded as the more successful of the two poets, having had his poem 'A Christmas Hymn' anthologised and favourably compared to Milton. Browing, in contrast had been eviscerated by the critics for Sordello, as was perhaps envious at the success of his friend.

In its tone and treatment of Māori, Ranulf and Amohia is idealistic and romantic, which was at odds with Domett's policies in government. Domett can be considered to be racist, even by the standards of his time, and although making much indirect recourse to Māori culture in preparing his epic (Domett made much use of the work of his friend, Governor George Grey, notably his Polynesian Mythology), his interpretation of Māori attitudes and beliefs was viewed strictly from a reactionary standpoint. This is perhaps interesting in that Domett and his literary contemporaries thought of themselves more as liberals rather than as nationalist imperialists.

As to its continuing importance, some regard Ranulf and Amohia, as having more relevance to the tradition of British literature than the local equivalent, though it is certainly notable as one of the most ambitious of poetical works connected with New Zealand.

We are happy to be able to make this work freely-available for study online and for downloading, and hope that this helps to facilitate the debate about the place of this work in our national literature.

For a much more thorough treatment of Domett and his work, I'd suggest consulting Jane Stafford's essay The Encyclopedic Fantasy of Alfred Domett in Maoriland: New Zealand Literature 1872-1914, as well as Jane's literary biography of Domett in Kōtare.

Jason

In from the cold: orphan works

A recent JISC report, In from the Cold, contains some welcome research into the problem of orphan works.

The problem
Orphan works are typically regarded as those in copyright where either the author has died and no other authority responsible for granting copyright permission can be located, or those works where the author cannot be found or simply cannot be determined.

As can be guessed from this definition, orphan works can be problematic in many ways for cultural institutions and others wishing to re-use such material, whether this be republishing it in another form (online, as in the case of the NZETC), or incorporating it into a new work.

At times, because the author cannot be determined or because the date of death of the author is unknown, the copyright provenance of a work is therefore not known, and those wanting to re-use the material will often err on the side of caution by not re-using the work, instead treating it as if it is in copyright in order to avoid possibly infringing copyright law.

And, with copyright law, there are often complications introduced into the process of determining the copyright provenance of a given work. Although attempts have been made to harmonise copyright law, notably with the Berne Convention of 1886, it often differs markedly from country to country. As one example, the copyright term in the EU generally lasts until the end of the 70th year after the death of the author. However, in New Zealand, this term lasts only until the end of the 50th year after death.

There are also many exceptions and special cases, including transitional provisions which mean that the general terms do not always apply, and may instead have to be supplanted by copyright terms of shorter or longer duration (or no duration in some cases) depending on the nature and medium of the work, the date of creation or publication, and numerous other factors.

Another limiting factor in the discussion of orphan works up until now has been the lack of research into the actual extent of the problem: how many of a nations' cultural artifacts fall into the category of orphan works? What impediments does this cause for those cultural organisations that wish to re-use such works?

The findings
The JISC report is timely, as it provides some rigorous research into this problem, albeit from a UK perspective. Amongst the observations in the report are a number that coincide with ones that we have noticed:

• A large amount of 19th century material is being digitised (because it can reasonably be assumed that most is out of copyright). Similarly, a reasonable amount of recently-published material is being digitised (because it is relatively easy to identify and contact the authors).
  However, most 20th century material is not being digitised, because it is likely to be in copyright, and because much this falls into the category orphan works. As the JISC report notes, this is leading to the creation of "a black hole of 20th century content."
• If there is any uncertainty about the copyright provenance of a given publication, then institutions typically tread cautiously, being reluctant to even unknowingly infringe copyright law
• Although there are exceptions in copyright law allowing for re-use of certain material in certain contexts (e.g., the "fair-dealing" provisions in New Zealand law), because of uncertainty about how these provisions apply in particular situations or how far they extend institutions can be reluctant to make use of these exceptions
• Due to the amount of time and resource that can be involved in trying to conclusively determine copyright provenance with uncertain results, many institutions choose simply to direct their resources into areas where they can be more certain of making good use of these resources. One contributor to the JISC report notes that "A total of 150 hours was spent by a freelance researcher, and 152 hours was spent by British Library staff on seeking permissions, which resulted in eight permissions being received."
  

In determining the scale of the problem, the report found that, in the UK:

• there is a conservative estimate of 25 million works which can be classified as orphaned, though this figure could be higher than 50 million
• Of the 503 survey respondents, almost 90% found their service delivery affected at least occasionally by the problem of orphan works, while more than 25% noted that orphan works either frequently affect their activities or affects everything they do.
• As organisations take around half a day to trace rights for each orphan work, there are many millions of person-days required to substantially improve the situation under current conditions
• More than a third of organisations surveyed do not have any specific resources in place to help deal with orphan works.

As the report notes:
"The scale and impact of Orphan Works across the public sector confirms that the presence of Orphan Works is in essence locking up culture and other public sector content and preventing organisations from serving the public interest. Works of little and/or variable commercial value but high academic value and cultural significance are languishing unused."

What can be done?
Although concerned with quantifying the problem rather than concentrating on solutions, the report does proffer some observations and recommendations:

• They note that the majority of survey responses (60%) call for legislative change
• There is a need to harmonise and study efforts across Europe
• More use could be made of licensing schemes
• The possibility of a central rights agency or opt-in register could be investigated
• Legal certainty and safeguards regarding what is an orphan work and how it may be re-used could be established
  
• There is support for using exceptions to copyright law for "educational purposes"
• Stop the problem from here on through training and awareness

From the NZETC's point of view, using licensing schemes such as Creative Commons provide a way forward for new works, as they allow authors to specify in more detail what rights they wish to grant regarding the re-use of their work, and remove much of the doubt created by default copyright provisions.

The public's awareness of Creative Commons has been gradually increasing, and initiatives such as the promotion of Creative Commons licensing of New Zealand public sector outputs through the New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework can only be applauded, as they recognise the additional economic value to be gained by making content as freely available as possible, and serve to further raise the profile of Creative Commons.

In terms of the black hole of 20th century content, the main approach we have been taking here at the NZETC is to target those publications for which an existing body or organisation is in a position to grant over-arching permission for online reproduction. For example, with the Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War and the New Zealand Railways Magazine we were able to approach government departments which were in a position to grant permission for these large resources.

However, we are too keenly aware that there are many smaller (and not so small) works that are likely to languish as any copyright permissions will rest with an individual or their descendants (presuming there are any), whether or not they are aware of this.

Holiday reading

We've been putting up a few books online recently that make great holiday reading, and it turns out that there's a bit of a shipwreck adventure theme going on, all with a New Zealand focus of course.

First up is François Raynal's Wrecked on a Reef, which recounts the almost two-year stint of Raynal and his shipmates on the Auckland Islands after their ship, the Grafton, is wrecked. Amazingly, the Grafton crew survived their ordeal in relative health and comfort, while unbeknowen to them another group of survivors, who were wrecked later and rescued earlier, almost all died.

This sucess at surviving in an environment where it rains for 30 days a month and there is little to eat except molly mawks and an occasional seal was largely down to Raynal's remarkable talents for improving their conditions in spite of few resources, and they managed to make soap, tan leather, build a comfortable lodge, and make a forge and iron tools.

It's a fantastic read, and ended up being an influence on Jules Verne when he wrote The Mysterious Island. The edition we have online contains fascinating commentaries from Christiane Mortelier, which she has kindly allowed us to republish online.

The Auckland Islands feature again in The Castaways of Disappointment Island, an account of the wreck of the Dundonald, and another great read.

The Auckland Islands were responsible for a significant number of the shipwrecks occuring in New Zealand waters, of which probably the most famous was the wreck of the General Grant. In the days of sailing ships, the quickest route across the Pacific was typically via the latitudes of the Roaring 40s, to the south of New Zealand; however, with the Auckland Islands smack in the middle of the route a number of ships came to grief, and survivors typically had to endure for many months before there was a chance of rescue.

A book covering the fascinating history and geography of the Auckland Islands is Allen Eden's Islands of Despair. He goes into detail about a number of the wrecks, including the General Grant, the Grafton, the Dundonald, the Derry Castle, the Invercauld and others, but also covers the story of the Erlangen, a German steamer which used the Auckland Islands as a base during a successful effort to escape New Zealand waters at the beginning of the Second World War. The Erlangen managed to escape from Otago harbour and reach South America without detection, though even with stopping at the Auckland Islands to cut a large quantity of wood for fuel, the Captain was forced into using many of the wooden fittings on board in order to reach the destination.

A more modern tale of shipwreck disaster is The Wahine Disaster, by Max Lambert and Jim Hartley. The authors, both journalists, do a great job of weaving together the different stories of the survivors and evoking the atmosphere of that tragic day. The result is a book that is highly readable but also quite sobering, and is essential reading for anyone interested in the disaster.

Another book well worth reading that we've had available online for a while now is Elsie K. Morton's Crusoes of Sunday Island, an account of the life of the Bell family on Sunday Island (now known as Raoul Island) in the Kermadecs. What seems at times an ideal, if at times difficult life, is put into contrast by the events at the end of the book which force the family to flee the island.

If shipwreck adventure is not your cup of tea, then you could try some of our more literary additions:

Katherine Mansfield's Novels and Novelists, a collection of reviews Mansfield wrote on leading authors of the day originally published in the Athenæum between April 1919 and December 1920. This work contains 150 reviews of 127 books by authors including Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence and many others.

Pageant, a 1933 (our edition from 1935) New Zealand novel from the pen of Edith Lyttleton (writing as G.B. Lancaster) which sold more than 50,000 copies in the United States alone during the first two years of its release. As Terry Sturm notes in his comprehensive article on Lyttleton's publishing career and her entanglements with publishers and literary agents, "It was by far the most widely read novel ever written by a New Zealander, up to that time." We also have two of Lyttleton's other novels available online: Promenade and The World is Yours.

Jane Mander's The Passionate Puritan, according to the New Zealand Book Council, "is a rather cheerful account of kauri milling, apparently written with an eye on the cinema (‘a mistake’, Mander claimed, she ‘ever afterwards regretted’)". Mander is probably best known for her novel The Story of a New Zealand River, which was adapted for the screen by Jane Campion as The Piano, and which Mansfield rather critically reviews in Novels and Novelists.

Margaret Bullocks's Utu: A Story of Love, Hate and Revenge. Part of the Nineteenth Century New Zealand Novels collection, this edition of Utu has been extensively footnoted and prepared with an introduction to the work of Margaret Bullock by Vicki Hughes, a student from the University of Victoria Department of English postgraduate programme. As Vicki notes, "Deceit, revenge, murder, incest, cannibalism and false identities, Margaret Bullock’s Utu: A Story of Love, Hate and Revenge has it all."

If we're talking favourites, then mine would have to be Raynal's Wrecked on a Reef, which is truly stranger than fiction, and an amazing tale of resourcefulness in the face of adversity.

For Stuart, his choice is Archibald Baxter's We Will Not Cease, an account of the author's horrific treatment during the First World War as a conscientious objector including imprisonment, beating, the infamous "Number 1 Field Punishment" (essentially day-long cruxifiction), and being left for dead on the battlefields of France. It's a truly remarkable book, and one for which the matter-of-fact tone is amazing, given the tribulations that the author experienced.

These books described above are all available as ePub eBooks (and occasionally PDF), downloadable for reading on your mobile device such as the iPhone / iPod Touch, or electronic ink devices such as the ecoReader which VicBooks here at Victoria University is now stocking. While we don't expect too many New Zealanders to be reading ePubs such as those mentioned above this holiday season, if the pace of developments in 2010 is anything like it has been this year, then we think that in twelve months time we'll see quite a few more people downloading ePubs from the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre website.

For us, the rapid acceptance of eBooks has been the biggest surprise of the year, and we're glad that we can help to ensure that New Zealand's historical cultural texts can be represented in this brave new world. We look forward to making many more titles of interest to the New Zealand public freely available online during 2010.

Wishing everyone a relaxing and enjoyable time over the holiday season,

Jason

Katherine Mansfield as reviewer

Like most people that have passed through a New Zealand university, I've been exposed to a strong dose of writing by Katherine Mansfield, who even today ranks as New Zealand's pre-eminent writer. I've marvelled at the technique in her short stories, and enjoyed the candidness of her writing in the diaries and letters, and even enjoyed a number of books about her, including Antony Alper's biography and Margaret Scott's enjoyable reminiscenses about following the Mansfield trail.

However, I'd never really realised the strength and wit of Mansfield's writing as a reviewer, as illustrated in her reviews written for The Athenæum, the literary magazine edited by her husband, John Middleton Murry.

Spanning a period of only 21 months, Mansfield produced reviews covering more than 150 works of 127 authors, totalling more than 100,000 words, before becoming too ill and disinterested to write more. These reviews exemplify the wit, charm, and caustic exactness of Mansfield's writing, and should be regarded as an essential resource for those studying her work and technique.

She recognises the talent of her contemporaries, extolling with pleasure on Virginia Woolf's Kew Gardens:

Mrs. Virginia Woolf's story belongs to another age. It is so far removed from the note-book literature of our day, so exquisite an example of love at second sight. She begins where the others leave off, entering Kew Gardens, as it were, alone and at her leisure when their little first screams of excitement have died away and they have rushed afield to some new brilliant joy

She is no less taken by Woolf's Night and Day:

The strangeness lies in her aloofness, her air of quiet perfection, her lack of any sign that she has made a perilous voyage—the absence of any scars [...] It is impossible to refrain from comparing ‘Night and Day’ with the novels of Miss Austen. There are moments, indeed, when one is almost tempted to cry it Miss Austen up-to-date. It is extremely cultivated, distinguished and brilliant, but above all—deliberate.

However, she is also not reluctant to unlease her acerbicness for those works that fail to impress her. For instance, in her review of Jerome K. Jerome's All Roads Lead to Calvary:

‘All Roads Lead to Calvary’ is another novel. It is not more; it is one of that enormous pile of novels…. ‘Are they fresh?’ ‘Yes, baked to-day, Madame.’ But they are just the same as those that were baked yesterday and the day before—and the day before that. So much flour, a sprinkle of currants, a smear of sugar on the top. Melancholy, melancholy thought of all those people steadily munching, asking for another, and carrying perhaps a third one home with them in case they should wake up in the night and feel—not hungry, exactly—but ‘just a little empty.’

Her easy manner and facility with language emerge strongly from her reviews, and make them a pleasure to read, whether or not we are familiar with the work being critiqued:

Public Opinion, garrulous, lying old nurse that she is, cries: ‘Yes! Great books, immortal books are being born every minute, each one more lusty than the last. Let him who is without sin among you cast the first criticism.’ It would be a superb, thrilling world if this were true! Or if even a very moderate number of them were anything but little puppets, little make-believes, playthings on strings with the same stare and the same sawdust filling, just unlike enough to keep the attention distracted, but all like enough to do nothing more profound. After all, in these lean years of plenty how could it be otherwise? Not even the most hardened reader, at the rate books are written and read nowadays, could stand up against so many attacks upon his mind and heart, if it were. Reading, for the great majority—for the reading public—is not a passion but a pastime, and writing, for the vast number of modern authors, is a pastime and not a passion.

For those studying Mansfield and her influences, there is plenty to focus upon, whether it be references to the writers that deeply influenced her, such as Jane Austen, Chekhov and Dostoevsky, or allusions to childhood and her New Zealand past:

Perhaps one of the rarest and most delicious is meeting with an old play-fellow who is just come from the country of our childhood, and having an endless talk with him about what is changed and what is the same—whether the Aliens still live in the same house, what has become of the huge Molesworth family, and was the mystery of old Anderson ever solved?
We shall never see these people again; we shall share nothing more with them. We shall never push open their garden gates and smell our way past the flower bushes to the white verandahs where they sit gossiping in the velvet moonlight. Why should we feel then this passionate interest? Is it because, prisoners as we are, we love to feel we have inhabited other lives—lived more lives than one—or we are reluctant to withdraw wholly because of that whispered word ‘Finis’ which locks the doors against us, one by one, for ever?

But in case we ever think she is becoming sentimental in her critique, there are plenty of occasions where she is brusque and to the point, as with her review of Jane Mander's Story of a New Zealand River:

Miss Jane Mander is immensely hampered in her writing by her adherence to the old unnecessary technical devices—they are no more—with which she imagines it necessary to support her story. If one has the patience to persevere with her novel, there is, under all the false wrappings, the root of something very fresh and sturdy. She lacks confidence and the courage of her opinions; like the wavering, fearful heroine, she leans too hard on England. There are moments when we catch a bewilderingly vivid glimpse of what she really felt and knew about the small settlement of people in the lumber-camp, but we suspect that these are moments when she is off her guard.

Although many of the novels Mansfield covers in these reviews are now lost to the collective memory, there are also many writers whose works have stood the test, including Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, Jack London, Gertrude Stein, and Edith Wharton.
Reading through the reviews, I can't help but have my attention caught again and again by some turn of phrase or description which is very tangible and sharply-defined in the way that few writers are able to produce even today.

These reviews are a joy to read, and we're pleased to be able to make these reviews available for everyone's edification / mortification. They can be found at: http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly
/tei-ManNove.html, which also includes an index of the writers reviewed.

Typo: typographical wonder of the 19th century

Typo
A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review [1887-1897]

One significant project that we've recently made available online is Robert Coupland Harding's magazine Typo.

Typo was the product of one man, Coupland Harding, who did the editorial work, much of the writing, and the composition and printing.

Dr Sydney Shep goes into much more detail about Robert Coupland Harding and his magazine Typo in her introduction. As Sydney mentions, it is "a landmark in New Zealand printing and publishing, famous in its time, then forgotten, and now re-discovered."

There's some fantastic material in Typo, both pictorial and textual, and this is the first of a series of posts where I'll surface some of the interesting bits and peices we've noticed while working on this collection.

Below is a selection of some of my favourite pages from Typo, and these are only scratching the surface.

And you thought WingDings was cool...

Cover of vol I	Cover of vol III	Ornaments	Optical illusions
Cover advertising	Cover of vol IV	Type ribbons	Lyon & Blair souvenir
A typographic fantasy	Type specimens	Second-hand job founts	Cover of vol VI
Type specimens	Ex-cathedra	Cover of volume seven	Type specimens
Type specimens	Cover of vol VIII	Cover of vol XI	Type specimens

New texts from the NZETC (November 2009)

We're happy to announce a number of texts made recently available online at the NZETC website.

These texts are a bit of a varied bunch, but include the following notable works:

• Te Kāhui Kura Māori
  The second issue of a born-digital journal of post-graudate Māori Writing.
  
  
• A Book in the Hand: Essays on the History of the Book in New Zealand
  Originally published in 2000 by Auckland University Press who, along with the authors, have kindly permitted us to make this important book available online.
  
  There are some fascinating works in this collection, including Donald Kerr's essay on George Gray's book-collecting habits, Peter Lineham's look at the production of the 1887 second edition of the Maori bible, and Terry Sturm's survey of the publishing history of G. B. Lancaster, one of New Zealand's most successful authors who is little-remembered these days.
  
  For those with a more bibliographic bent, there is Jocelyn Cumming's article on the conservation of the 1827 East India Pilot, Peter Hughes' history of printer Bob Lowry and the Pelorus Press, and Margery Blackman's work on the art and craft of bookbinder Eleanor Joachim.
  
  For others more interested in literature itself, there is Patrick Sandbrook's essay on Robin Hyde, and Lawrence Jones observations on the shifts in generational attitudes that occured in the 1930s when writers such as Denis Glover, R.A.K Mason, and A. R. D. Fairburn were taking over from the older, established order of writers such as Alan Mulgan and Charles Marris.
  
  
• The Manuscript Diary of James Brogden, August 1871 – December 1872
  James Brogden was approached in 1871 by Julius Vogel to construct the railway network that he envisioned for New Zealand, and Brogden's diary recounts many observations of his travels through New Zealand, negotiations with New Zealand public officials, and the resulting process of railway construction. Often candid, Brodgen's diary entries reveal the difficulties and frustrations he faced when dealing with both the physical and political geography of New Zealand.
  
  The original manuscript of this diary resides in the National Library of Wales, and we are pleased to be able to make the digital version (including fascimilie images of the manuscript diary pages) available online with the assistance and encouragement of David Budgett, a relative of James Brogden.
  
  James Brogden eventually went bankrupt, at least in part because of difficulties with the arrangements negotiated for the construction of New Zealand railways. As David phrases it in his introduction, "the diary then is written by an optimistic and vigorous man who has worked hard and successfully on the industrial development of his part of South Wales and hopes to do something similar in New Zealand. His story after that was less happy"
  
  
• Jerzy Podstolski's 1972 translation of Sygurd Wiśniowski's 1877 Polish novel Tikera; or, Children of the Queen of Oceania
  The NZETC Nineteenth Century novel collection includes many literary curios, to which we now add this novel. Written by an adventuring Polish writer who had some acquaintance with the country, having lived here in 1864-5 though not visiting the novel's settings of the Waikato, the Bay of Plenty, or New Plymouth, Tikera was originally published in 1877, with this version being translated from the 1956 Warsaw edition of Dzieci królowej Oceanii by Jerzy Podstolski, a Senior Lecturer at the former Library School in Wellington. This edition originally appeared with a very enlightening commentary by Dennis McEldowney which however, because of copyright considerations, we have not been able to make available on the website.
  

• Sydney Parkinson's A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas
  Sydney Parkinson was employed by Joseph Banks as a botanical artist sailing with Cook on his first voyage to New Zealand, and he recorded his many impressions both in literary and visual form.
  Parkinson unfortunately died of dysentry during the first voyage, and his diary was eventually edited and published by his brother, becoming a runaway bestseller of the time. Being a facsimilie of a 1784 reprint, the journal contains features such as an early vocabularly of the Maori language, and a number of early images of New Zealand and its inhabitants.
  

There are also a number of works which add further to collections that we've been developing in the last few years:

• Nineteenth-century New Zealand novels
  Edith Searle Grossmann's 1910 The Heart of the Bush
  G. A. Henty's 1891 Maori and Settler: A Story of the New Zealand War
  Alie Kacem's 1897 "For Father's Sake," or A Tale of New Zealand Life
  Thomas Musgrave's 1866 Castaway on the Auckland Isles
  Vicent Pyke's 1873 The Story of Wild Will Enderby
  W. M. Southan's 1881 The Two Lawyers
  
  
• New Zealand Wars
  James Cowan's 1922 The Old Frontier: Te Awamutu, the story of the Waipa Valley
  William Fox's 1866 The War in New Zealand
  Thomas W. Gudgeon's 1879 Reminiscences of The War in New Zealand
  
  
• Samoan and Pacific Studies
  Arthur Grimble's 1981 A Pattern of Islands
  Mary Davis Wallis' 1851 Life in Feejee
  Charles Hedley's 1900 The Atoll of Funafuti, Ellice group
  Sylvia Masterman's 1934 The Origins of International Rivalry in Samoa: 1845–1884
  
  
• New Zealand Ethnograpy
  Frances Del Mar's 1924 A year among the Maoris: study of their arts and customs
  S. Percy Smith's 1910 History and traditions of the Maoris of the West Coast, North Island of New Zealand, prior to 1840
  W. A. Taylor's 1950 Lore and History of the South Island Maori
  
  
• New Zealand Natural History
  Leonard Cockayne's 1910 New Zealand Plants and their Story
  J Coutts Crawford's 1862 Geological and Other Reports
  

What are NZETC visitors after?

Like many other websites, we use Google Analytics to monitor our web traffic, and it allows us to easily see trends and patterns in who is using our site and the content they are accessing.

For example, in the latest month-on-month comparision (October traffic compared against September traffic), amongst other interesting developments, we notice

• Absolute unique visitors are up by 9% (to 157,174)
• The number of visits are up by 7% (to 185,877), as are pageviews by 4% (to 402,357)
• However, the average time visitors are spending on the site is down slightly by 7% (to 2:01 minutes). This, we think, is because our server is performing much faster than previously, and therefore visitors are waiting less time for pages to load, so consequently we are not too worried about this figure
• Almost 80% of our traffic originates from search-engines (i.e. Google), though the figure being referred from other websites is gradually increasing, and is currently 16.5%

Looking at the type of material that visitors are accessing on our site, we see the usual culprits appearing in the top ten most used resources:

• George Pratt's Grammar and Dictionary of the Samoan Language, with English and Samoan vocabulary, with 12,981 pageviews over the month
• Herbert Williams' Dictionary of the Maori Language, with 3,561 pageviews over the month
• The predecessor to the Edmonds Cook Book, the 'Sure to Rise' Cookery Book, with 5,073 pageviews over the month
• Edward Tregear's Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, with 2,661 pageviews over the month
• The Cyclopedias, with 44, 098 pageviews over the month
• The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War, with 40,148 pageviews over the month

Interestingly, apart from the large series (WH2 histories and Cyclopedias), it is the Maori and Polynesian language materials that consistently make it into the list of most-used resources from one month to the next. We think that this shows that, unlike English-language resources, there is a relative lack of good Maori and Polynesian language resources freely available on the web, and therefore people looking for these tend to end up at our site.

Other interesting trends that show up include general use of Internet technology:

• Newer browsers are being adopted relatively quickly. Safari (+14%), Chrome (+26%) and Firefox (+10%) are all significantly up on their figures from last month
• There is continued evidence of a move away from dial-up and towards broadband, espcially faster broadband, with cable (12%) and T1 (10%) significantly up on last month

So, using Google Analytics to compare out traffic from one month to the next provides interesting indicators into how we should be focusing our energy in times ahead. For example, the increased use of broadband shows that, over time, we can maybe become a little more relaxed about putting up webpages that contain lots of images (e.g. page images of the book from which the web page was generated). Also, it seems as if we should continue to put effort into digitising Maori and Polynesian language materials, as the demand is obviously there.

Also, although relying on search engines such as Google to drive traffic to the NZETC site has and is working well, maybe we need to think about about making it easier for external sites to link to our texts, as this figure of direct referrals (16%) is realtively low compared to search engine traffic (around 80%).