The UC CEISMIC Canterbury Earthquakes Digital Archive programme was established in 2011 with the aim of preserving the knowledge, memories and earthquake experiences of people of the

Canterbury region Canterbury () is a region of New Zealand, located in the central-eastern South Island. The region covers an area of , making it the largest region in the country by area. It is home to a population of The region in its current form was estab ...

. The website provides federated access to a broad range of earthquake-related research material, gathered by leading New Zealand cultural and educational organisations.

Description

UC CEISMIC is a project of the

Digital Humanities Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or Information technology, digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanitie ...

department at the

University of Canterbury The University of Canterbury (UC; ; postnominal abbreviation ''Cantuar.'' or ''Cant.'' for ''Cantuariensis'', the Latin name for Canterbury) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was founded in 1873 as Canterbur ...

, which focuses on principles of openness and collaboration. The project was founded by University of Canterbury Professor Paul Millar following the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes. It was inspired by the September 11 Digital Archive project developed by the

Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM), formerly the Center for History and New Media (CHNM), is a research center specializing in digital history and information technology at George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax County, V ...

George Mason University George Mason University (GMU) is a Public university, public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Located in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., the university is named in honor of George Mason, a Founding Father ...

. The purpose is to preserve earthquake-related material for future generations, researchers, and other communities that experience disasters. UC CEISMIC is a federated archive, providing public access to a wide range of earthquake-related content, including images, videos, interviews, stories and research material from many content partners.

Metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

from each of the content partners is harvested by

DigitalNZ DigitalNZ is a service run by the National Library of New Zealand and funded by the New Zealand Government hosting New Zealand-related digital media. The service is searchable and shareable, and reuse is allowed where possible. there were more t ...

and fed through to the federated search tool at ceismic.org.nz using DigitalNZ's API. Content providers include UC QuakeStudies, Kete Christchurch, Ross Becker & Moira Fraser and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. The total number of items publicly available is over 55,000. Lessons learned from the project are shared in chapter 10 of the book Crisis and Disaster in Japan and New Zealand: Actors, Victims and Ramifications.

Consortium

The UC CEISMIC Consortium includes core content contributors, as well as providing members of the programme board. It exists to ensure the programme is sustainable and well managed, and that the digital repository meets international standards. The Consortium is founded upon a Memorandum of Understanding that holds open access and collaboration as two of its key principles.

Consortium members

National Library of New Zealand The National Library of New Zealand () is charged with the obligation to "enrich the cultural and economic life of New Zealand and its interchanges with other nations" (National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Mātauranga) Act 2003). Under the ...

Ministry for Culture and Heritage The Ministry for Culture and Heritage (MCH; ) is the department of the New Zealand Government responsible for supporting the Creative New Zealand, arts, Culture of New Zealand, culture, New Zealand Historic Places Trust, built heritage, Sport Ne ...

* NZ On Screen *

Christchurch City Libraries Christchurch City Libraries is a network of 21 libraries and a mobile book bus. operated by the Christchurch City Council and Following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake the previous Christchurch Central Library building was demolished, and ...

Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA; Māori: ''Te Mana Haumanu ki Waitaha'') was the public service department of New Zealand charged with coordinating the rebuild of Christchurch and the surrounding areas following the 22 Februa ...

* Canterbury Museum *

Te Papa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa (Māori language, Māori for 'Waka huia, the treasure box'), it opened in 1998 after the merging of the Nation ...

Archives New Zealand Archives New Zealand ( Māori: ''Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga'') is New Zealand's national archive and the official guardian of its public archives. As the government's recordkeeping authority, it administers the Public Records Act 2005 an ...

* Ngai Tahu Research Centre * The New Zealand Film Archive

UC QuakeStudies

UC QuakeStudies is the research component of UC CEISMIC, and one of several repositories that the CEISMIC search engine harvests material from. It is a secure, access-controlled repository, built and hosted at the

, with the purpose of preserving a digital record of the earthquakes and the rebuild, and to facilitate future research. Earthquake-related content is sourced by the UC CEISMIC programme office from researchers, community groups, and other organisations and individuals. Content is then organised, described and stored in online collections. Qualitative

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

such as geo-locations, dates, file sizes, tags and categories is added where possible by the programme office team. The QuakeStudies archive includes large content collections such as

Fairfax Media Fairfax Media was a media (communication), media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased ''The ...

Environment Canterbury Environment Canterbury, frequently abbreviated to ECan, is the promotional name for the Canterbury Regional Council. It is the regional council for Canterbury, the largest region in the South Island of New Zealand. It is part of New Zealand's ...

Gap Filler A platform gap (also known technically as the platform train interface or PTI in some countries) is the space between a train car (or other Public transport, mass transit vehicle) and the edge of the station platform, often created by geometric c ...

New Zealand Historic Places Trust Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (initially the National Historic Places Trust and then, from 1963 to 2014, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust; in ) is a Crown entity that advocates for the protection of ancestral sites and heritage bui ...

, QuakeBox, urban regeneration projects and a digitised copy of The Pledge. It also holds content contributed by individuals and community groups, such as records of blog posts by members of the Christchurch Bloggers group and a variety of photographs and videos.

References

External links

UC CEISMIC website

UC QuakeStudies website
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