Pacific Corpus is currently down

Unfortunately due to a technical fault the NZETC Pacific Corpus is currently down. Library staff are aware of the issue and working to restore service, but it may take several days.

Other NZETC corpora are available. If you need access to a particular text, email us at
Library-TechnologyServices@vuw.ac.nz and we can provide you with an epub version of the text.

We are sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Additions to the collection

We are happy to announce the addition of new texts to the collection.

•    SMAD Magazine. SMAD magazine was a student publication at VUW that rivalled Spike.
•    Report on the Geology and Goldfields of Otago by F.W. Hutton
•    King Country ; or, Explorations in New Zealand; a narrative of 600 miles of travel through Maoriland by J. H. Kerry-Nicholls
•    The Life and Times of Sir George Grey, KCB by William Lee Rees & Lily Rees
•    The Life and Times of D. M. Stuart by C. Stuart Ross
•    The Journal of Edward Ward
•    A Bibliography of Printed Maori to 1900 by Herbert W. Williams
•    New Zealand 1826-1827: From the French of Dumont D'Urville

We are making some changes to the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre.

The domain name for the NZETC will change from http://www.nzetc.org/ to http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz. We are planning on making that change on the 28th of May.  We will be maintaining the old Domain URL as a secondary domain name and putting redirects in place so no links should be broken in the changeover.

The name of the NZETC will change from The New Zealand Electronic Text Centre to The New Zealand Electronic Text Collection. This is a small change being made to reflect that the Centre as a separate entity no longer exists.

The Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) Library continues to maintain its commitment to open access resources, to maintaining the NZETC content and to building new content.

New Zealand music month

To celebrate the first day of New Zealand music month, here are some NZETC music highlights.

The first are sections in "New Zealand Studies: A Guide to Bibliographic Resources" on Music and Māori Music respectively. These are a little dated, but good places to start for those interested in the roots of New Zealand music.

The second is the music coverage in "Spike," a Student magazine here at Victoria, which includes the founding of the Music program, the Glee Club and classic advertising material.

Best New Zealand Poems 11 is now available

The latest issue of online anthology Best New Zealand Poems is now available. This issue comes with a South Island perspective and Irish rhythm. This year’s editor is Christchurch poet, playwright and fiction writer Bernadette Hall who sums up her top 25 poems, selected from a vast number published in 2011, with a phrase from an Irish wedding song—“They are the crown of good company,” she says.

To access Best New Zealand Poems 11 please follow this link.

Major events have shaken New Zealand in recent times, says Hall, and it is wonderful to see how strong the voice of poetry has been in response. The tragedies of Pike River mine and the Christchurch earthquakes are here, held in words
that have been allowed to ferment and flow. Hall was struck by an irresistible element in the poems she selected—their “capacity for unsettlement, the thing in a poem that works against the expected, against dogma and rhetoric and convention.”

The work spans poetic generations, from The most beautiful love poem of all time by 2011 Adam Prize winner, 25-year-old Hera Lindsay Bird, to In Dad’s Council House, a nursery rhyme for grown-ups by 77-year-old actor and poet Peter Bland, recipient of a 2011 Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement.

Professor Bill Manhire, Director of the International Institute of Modern Letters, has
relinquished his role as overall series editor of Best New Zealand Poems and is now in the happy position of just being a poet. He makes a first-time appearance in the anthology, with an echoing and unsettling poem called The Schoolbus.

The new overall series editor, poet and International Institute of Modern Letters lecturer Chris Price, says “This edition is particularly rich in new voices, poets we can expect to hear more of in future.” A number of the poems are also available as audio recordings. Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Douglas Wright is among the poets who can be heard reading their work on the site.

The Spike Magazine is live

Fifty years of Victoria University of Wellington’s The Spike student magazine is now available online. The Library has digitised the complete run of The Spike: Victoria College Review which ran continuously from 1902 to 1949, then in 1954, 1957 and 1964. Follow this link to access The Spike.

The Spike records the activities of student life at Victoria University. There are regular contributions of poetry, prose, articles by academics and reviews of cultural and sporting events.

The Spike contains pieces published during the World Wars. With the coming centenary of WWI in 2014 approaching these will be invaluable for researchers.

From the October 1916 The Spike in ‘Extracts From Soldiers Letters’;

Wellington, 21st September, 1916.
Dear "Spike,"—
Extracts from Alan MacDougall's letters will be of abiding interest to his old friends.
These will be pardoned for thinking that when he died, Victoria College lost its most perfect student. In tribute to him, will you publish some extracts from certain recent letters of his which tell of the work he was engaged in and how he viewed it, and which unconsciously body forth those qualities of perception, faith, humour, generosity and noble courage which will keep his memory ever green in the hearts of those who loved him. At the end, with his friends in the line stricken down, he was lonely; and we do well to believe that he has passed into an immortal Fellowship.
I am, etc.,
D.S.S.

“We are well fed and clad; frequently well housed in billets, as now, and always pretty happy. It's just as well to try and be happy in the face of the ever present possibilities of this life. The way we look at the facts is that if a Jack Johnson or whizz-bang is addressed to you, it will find you. The goods are always delivered—fatalism of a cheery sort. How one finds out the real men in this sort of work! the cool quiet ones, the gasbags, the dare-devils, the paralytic, the shirkers. From what I know of other battalions I conclude that we are to be reckoned fortunate beyond most in our personnel, both officers and men. We trust each other and we shall back each other.”

From the editorial in Issue One:

“We be wayfarers together, O Students, treading the same thorny paths of Studentdom, laughing at the same professorial jokes, grieving in common over the same unpalatable "swot," playing the same games, reading the same indigestible books. Let us also pause for a few moments together and stretch out a hand of welcome to a small white stranger, that has come amongst us with little preliminary under the name of The Spike. Hast thou The Spike, fellow-student? If not, I pray thee make all haste to procure it, less worse things befall thee, and thou art impaled on its venomous point.”

Tuatara article translated into Ukrainian

Around the middle of 2011 we received a request from translator Martha Ruszkowski to translate a Tuatara article into Ukrainian. Initially we were a little surprised by the request, but Martha explained that the article relates to her own professional interests, and that there would be readers interested from Ukraine.

A quick search for Martha's other work reveals she is busy translating content into Ukrainian and Belarusian on various topics from New Zealand gambling to Australian Botanic Gardens and beyond.

Permission was granted and a few weeks later Martha replied with the link to her Ukrainian translation of Plant Pirates by Miriam A Aiken. I think it's great to see NZETC collections reaching new audiences this way.

Turbine 11 Writing Journal

We are happy to announce that Turbine 11 is now live and you can read it here: Turbine 11.

Turbine 11 contains poetry, short stories, an interview with the playwrite Albert Belz and reading journals. Turbine 11 also features poetry from the recipient of this years Adam Prize for creative writing Hera Bradburn (writing under the name Hera Lindsay Bird). Some of the poets have also been kind enough to record their works if you want to listen.

Turbine is an annual journal, published electronically, to showcase new writing from New Zealand authors. Many of whom are emerging authors. The journal is edited by staff and students from the International Institute of Modern Letters Master of Arts in Creative Writing degree. This years editors were Damien Wilkins, Christopher Howe and Hera Lindsay Bird.

The NZETC works with the IIML to produce and host the Turbine website.