INVITATION TO BECOME A PARTNER ORGANISATION OF THE NATIONAL DIGITAL FORUM

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.

The purpose of the Forum is to encourage, support and promote a national, cooperative, bicultural and cross-sectoral approach to enhancing access to natural and cultural heritage resources online. The Forum seeks to foster best practice, and build expertise nationally and across all relevant sectors.

The strategic objectives of the National Digital Forum are:

1. To share information on digital projects, initiatives, and activities;
2. To identify, promote and advise on best practice in digitisation activity;
3. To promote the use of agreed standards to ensure ‘interoperability’ and effective resource discovery and retrieval, now and in the future;
4. To develop expertise in the regions and nationally in the area of digitisation;
5. To achieve collaborative and cost effective digitisation outcomes through the avoidance of duplication of effort and resources;
6. To promote the long-term storage and preservation of digital resources; and
7. To be a national voice for advocacy on digitisation initiatives;

To date the National Digital Forum has organised annual conferences, established the NDF website, established a register of digitisation activities; organised training opportunities in association with the annual conference, and initiated Matapihi.  

All of these achievements have been made possible by the leadership and commitment of the 3 national cultural institutions Archives NZ; the National Library of New Zealand, and Te Papa, and many other institutions around New Zealand who have contributed significant time and expertise.  

The Advisory Group of the National Digital Forum recognised that if the Forum was to continue to achieve its strategic objectives, and keep pace with the needs and speed of change in this sector, then an ongoing project-focussed approach would be required.  As a result, in 2006 a new Terms of Reference and governance structure was agreed for the Forum.  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.  A copy of the Terms of Reference is available at the following link: http://ndf.natlib.govt.nz/downloads/pmg_termsofreference.pdf.

The purpose of this letter is to invite your organisation to register as a Partner Organisation of the National Digital Forum. In addition to supporting the strategic objectives above, being a partner organisation will entitle your organisation to the following benefits:

Communication: via the clearing house and website, minutes etc
Advice: on intellectual property, digitisation, description standards etc
Discounts: discounted registration fees for conference, workshops and training opportunities;
Participation: nominate and participate in election of NDF governing body

Advocacy: a national approach to advocacy and coordinated funding

Joining is easy.   Any organisation which is interested in the strategic objectives of the NDF and willing to support them is eligible to register as a Partner Organisation.

The NDF is not an incorporated society and there are no membership fees.  Instead partner organisations  provide support in kind, through making available time, people, expertise or funding as appropriate, to support specific activities of interest which the NDF may undertake. In addition, partner organisations agree to be listed on a public register. 

If your organisation is interested in and would benefit from the work of the National Digital Forum, then register now using the form which can be located at http://ndf.natlib.govt.nz/about/aboutus.htm#_partner in either print or online format.