UC CEISMIC launches DigitalNZ powered search
Posted on 07 May 2012 by Thomasin
The UC CEISMIC Canterbury Earthquake Digital Archive launched its new search service this week. CEISMIC is working to avoid fragmentation of records and stories about the earthquakes from different people, and now behold their great new federated search function. It's powered by DigitalNZ, and pulls in amazing material from across various partners in more useful and meaningful ways.
The website helps partners share with each other, and you, for a better research and memory gathering experience. A quick query on 'Hagley Park' brings a distorted lamp post, a collapsed shed from a fallen tree. There are first hand accounts of those who were in and around the park at the time too. Jessica, aged 7, tells how she fled Christchurch Hospital with her family to the safer open spaces of lawns and gardens.
Photographed by Ross Becker and Moira Fraser (CC BY NC ND)
CEISMIC is very much a living resource and will continue to be fed by organisations, researchers and citizens over time. A 'Hagley Park' search can drop results from 2010 and 2011 amongst more recent artefacts showing remembrance, hope and recovery - pictures of Cantabrians lying back on the grass during a memorial service, or branches strung with brightly coloured Chinese New Year lanterns, one year on. But there are also memories from back in time. Check out this vintage travelogue video showing off the Hagley Park we knew in 1952. There are scenes of daffodil walks which still line the hospital, where Jessica and her family would have gone to decades later.
Photographed by Ross Becker and Moira Fraser (CC BY NC ND)
Content partners to UC CEISMIC include the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, NZ on Screen, Canterbury Museum and community story collections such as the children's 'When My Home Shook' website. Today 8,000 digital objects are currently accessible through UC CEISMIC search, and this is expected to treble when the University of Canterbury’s archive, UC QuakeStudies, goes live over the coming months.
We'll be working with UC CEISMIC Programme Office at the University of Canterbury to add new content as it becomes available. Be sure to get in touch with them via ceismic@canterbury.ac.nz or their website if you are interested in their work or have content to add.
We've turned off comments here, but we'd still love to know your thoughts. Visit us on our Facebook Page @digitalnz or on Twitter @DigitalNZ to share any ideas or musings with the DigitalNZ team.