Governance

This page provides basic information about the National Digital Forum and the development of this website. More detailed information is available at the NDF projects and events page.

The governance structure

The National Digital Forum was established in 2002 to achieve the cooperative development, delivery, and preservation of high quality digital resources that reflect the natural and cultural heritage of Aotearoa New Zealand.

A new Terms of Reference and governance structure was agreed for the Forum in 2006. This is based on the support of Partner Organisations and an elected Board, which will set direction and coordinate various sub-projects established to progress the work of the NDF.

National Digital Forum: Terms of Reference for National Digital Form Board.

pmg_termsofreference [HTML]
pmg_termsofreference [PDF]

The National Digital Forum Board is made up of the following members:

John Garraway - chair

John Garraway is currently Digital Services Manager at the University of Auckland Library, following previous positions as Director of Library and Learning Services at CPIT (2005-2007) and Digital Access Manager at Auckland City Libraries (2003-2004). He is an Associate and Registered member of the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA), serving on its National Council from 2003-2007 as a Regional Councillor, Vice-President, President and Immediate Past President. He was nominated by LIANZA for the inaugural NDF Board and was subsequently elected in 2006. John is the current Chair of the NDF Board.

Alison Stevenson

Alison Stevenson is Director of the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre (NZETC), which is part of Victoria University Library. The NZETC initiates and act as a partner in projects at the forefront of digitisation and content delivery efforts in New Zealand and the Pacific. The work of the NZETC encompasses the use of advanced technologies as well as exploring the new opportunities for humanities scholarship offered by digital text. Alison is a   m ember of the Victoria University Library Executive and a Board member of the Humanities Research Network. She is a Scot and has a strong technical background in cultural heritage computing through work on various UK and European projects. Alison holds a Master of Science in Information Technology and a Master of Arts in English Literature, both from the University of Glasgow.

Andy Fenton

Andy Fenton is the Managing Director of New Zealand Micrographic Services Limited, a leading authority in New Zealand in preservation microfilming and digitisation of heritage materials. Andy has a wealth of experience in the areas of film processing, inspection and quality control and storage of microforms. He was invited to represent the interests of the New Zealand Micrographics Industry on the Australia/New Zealand Joint Standards Committee (MS/4) for Information and Image Management in 1996.

Extending his skill-set to commercial document scanning, Andy co-founded Desktop Imaging Ltd in 1997 ( www.desktopimaging.co.nz); and the Heritage Materials Imaging Facility in 2003 ( www.hmif.co.nz). The HMIF was co-founded in partnership with the Victoria University of Wellington and was opened by the Minister for the National Library the Hon. Marian Hobbs. It is sited in the National Library of New Zealand Building.

All three organisations have a strong focus on duty of care, standards and quality.

Andy delivers training courses in reformatting - most recently in collaboration with Heather Brown (Preservation Manager for the State Library of South Australia) for the Singapore National Archives. They also send their officers to New Zealand for a week long training at our facility in Tawa.

Andy is a member of the ARANZ Council, Archives NZ Digitisation Standard Advisory Group and the Australia/New Zealand Joint Standards Committee (MS/4) for Information and Image Management. He was elected to the inaugural National Digital Forum Board in 2006.

Brian Flaherty

Brian's involvement in digital libraries dates back to 1995 with the development of LEARN, The University of Auckland Library’s gateway to digital resources. He has overseen the growth of digital content in the Library, both subscription resources and locally created collections. These range from photographic and slide databases, to full-text books, journals, multi-volume monograph publications, as well as audio and video materials.  He is web developer for nzepc (The New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre) and co-editor of Trout, a poetry e-journal. Brian is a past Chair of ITSIG, a member of the Matapihi Advisory Group and a LIANZA Associate. His involvement with the National Digital Advisory Board dates from its beginnings in 2002.

Bronwyn Officer

Bronwyn Officer was nominated for the NDF Board by the New Zealand Conservators of Cultural Materials Pū Manaaki Kahurangi Inc. She is the Senior Sound Conservator at the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, responsible for the preservation and conservation of audiovisual recordings at the Library for the last twenty years.

She also provides advice to staff and public on the preservation of audiovisual materials and is a member of the IASA (International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives) Technical Committee.

Her background includes a MusB(Hons), Otago and a Graduate Certificate in Audiovisual Management, UNSW.

Bruce Ralston

Bruce Ralston manages Library and Information Services at Auckland Museum, consisting of a major heritage research library and three gallery based information centres. Bruce has over 25 years extremely enjoyable experience in heritage institutions, and is passionate about getting content out to users through better arrangement and description, cataloguing, indexing, digitisation.

He participates in Auckland Heritage Librarians and Archivists Group (AHLAG) as a means of communicating and sharing knowledge in the Auckland metropolitan area.

Bruce managed a Community Partnership Fund project 2006/7 to convert the published WW1 nominal rolls into the Museum's Cenotaph database and enhance access by new search structures.

Penny Carnaby

Penny was appointed Chief Executive and National Librarian of the National Library of New Zealand in January 2003. She is currently one of the three Chief Executives on the Minister for Information Technology Digital Strategy Advisory Group, and is one of the sponsors of the New Zealand Digital Content Strategy. She is also Deputy Chair of the ICT Steering Committee for Education, a member of the Learning State Industry Training Board, the Library and Information Advisory Commission (LIAC), a member of National State Libraries of Australasia (NSLA), and Adjunct Professor in the School of Information Management at Victoria University of Wellington. In August 2006 Penny was appointed to chair the Conference of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL) internationally.

Prior to returning to New Zealand in 2003, she was University Librarian and Deputy Librarian at Macquarie University in Sydney. Previous to this she enjoyed a long career in the tertiary sector in several roles at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT), including leading integrated education delivery services in library and learning services, e-learning and staff development. In 1999-2000 she served as National President of the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA), and was awarded a Fellowship of the Association in 2001.

She has a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Diploma of Education from the University of New South Wales.

Penny’s professional interest is in creating national frameworks and strategies to enhance the flow of information to all parts of society. She believes that New Zealand Aotearoa has the potential to become a leading information democracy.

Her personal interests include the environment and wildlife of Australia and New Zealand, and the management of a small farm on Banks Peninsula, growing native trees.

Joanna Newman

Joanna Newman is President of the Archives and Records Association of New Zealand. She has been City Archivist for Wellington City Council for the past nine years. Her educational background includes post-graduate archival qualifications from the University of New South Wales in Australia. For the past 20 years she has been actively involved in many areas of archives and records management, including as co-developer and tutor for a Records Management course at Auckland University of Technology, developing national standards and on the council/boards of organisations such as ARMA and ARANZ.

Jackie Te Rore Tahana (Haki)

Haki is of Te Arawa and Tainui descent, his tribal affiliations are with Ngati Pikiao and Ngati Maniapoto. For the last five years Haki has worked for Whangarei Public Libraries as the Maori Information Services Librarian; his role includes consulting with Maori user groups, Iwi/hapu/whanau/marae and Education providers also. Currently he is a member of the Te Roopu Whakahau Executive Committee and will be the new Tumuaki (Chair) of Te Roopu Whakahau; July 2008 - June 2010. His background knowledge includes a BA in Maori Studies and a Diploma in Maori & Information Management.

Dianne Macaskill

Dianne Macaskill began in the position of Chief Executive and Chief Archivist for Archives New Zealand in 2001. She is the first permanent Chief Executive of Archives New Zealand as a stand-alone Government Department. Prior to taking up the role, Dianne was a Deputy Government Statistician at Statistics New Zealand.

Dianne has worked in the public sector since 1971 concentrating her efforts in the effective management of public information and appropriate access to that information.

Dianne says that Archives New Zealand is constantly reviewing the services that it provides. It aims to provide a high quality, efficient service to researchers who need to access archives as well as to oversee the effective management of the public records systems, both current records and those of long-term value.

Dianne holds a BSc from Victoria University.

Phillipa Tocker

Phillipa Tocker is Executive Director of Museums Aotearoa, the peak professional body for the museum sector in New Zealand. Since joining Museums Aotearoa in 2005, Phillipa's aims have been to encourage communication and interaction between museums and galleries and other related sectors, and to improve their capacity to understand and meet the challenges of the changing environments in which we operate. Previous employment at Victoria University of Wellington included a variety of management, administration and art collection management roles. Phillipa has a BAHons in art history and anthropology from Victoria University, reflecting a life-long engagement with the arts and culture.

Seddon Bennington

Dr Bennington is the Chief Executive of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

He is a New Zealander who took up his appointment at Te Papa in January 2003 after being Director of the Carnegie Science Centre in Pittsburgh in the United States, where he had been since 1994. Prior to that he was Chief Executive of the Scitech Discovery Centre in Perth, Head of the Division of Professional Services at the Western Australian Museum, Director of the City Gallery Wellington, and Director of the Otago Settlers Museum in Dunedin.

Dr Bennington has a PhD in Zoology from the University of Canterbury, and has also studied at university level art history, anthropology, New Zealand history, and Māori studies. He had a year working with Volunteer Service Abroad in Western Samoa in 1966.

Steve Knight

Steve Knight is the Associate Director, National Digital Library and Programme Architect, National Digital Heritage Archive at the National Library of New Zealand.

The National Digital Library is a newly created group within the National Library with a focus on access to and preservation of New Zealand digital content with a particular view to modelling and developing solutions that can be disseminated or scaled to the national level.

From a library background Steve has had experience in a range of information management disciplines, including records management and document management and the design and implementation of electronic services. Among other initiatives Steve was involved in setting up the National Digital Forum in New Zealand, the award-winning Matapihi collaboration and the National Digital Heritage Archive project. Steve represents the National Library on the National Digital Forum Board and is on the Steering Committee for the International Internet Preservation Consortium.

Elections are held for the eight partner members. Nominations are called for from the partner organisations, and members elected by the partner organisations.

The initial election placements were for two and three year periods, to achieve a rotation of places after two years.

Nominations for vacancies on the Board are now open.  An information pack and the nomination form are available in Word or PDF.