The National Digital Heritage Archive (NDHA)

Increasingly, New Zealand and the world's cultural heritage is being created and stored in digital form. Institutions are being challenged to preserve and provide long-term access to digital heritage collections under their guardianship.

The National Digital Heritage Archive (NDHA) is the National Library of New Zealand's technical and business solution to this challenge.

A digital storehouse, the NDHA will ensure that websites, digital images, CDs, DVDs and other 'digital born' and digitised items that make up the Library's growing digital heritage collections will, despite technical obsolescence, be preserved and remain accessible to researchers, students and library users now and in the future.

Digital preservation management is an emerging field of software development, and the NDHA Programme is pioneering development. Established in 2004, the NDHA Programme is due to be completed in late 2009.

Download the NDHA Programme factsheet

What will the NDHA be?

A successfully completed NDHA Programme will ensure the National Library has the technology, new business processes and other organisational changes it needs to provide ongoing access to and preservation of digital heritage collections under the guardianship of the National Library and Alexander Turnbull Library.

The NDHA will use 'Preservation', a standards-based, commercial software system developed in partnership with the Library's software partner on the programme, Ex Libris Group, and operate on Sun Microsystems hardware. The hardware and software will be designed to be scalable over time as the digital collections grow.

The NDHA Programme is developing applications that integrate 'Preservation' with the National Library's collection management systems and access products. Many of these will be made available to other institutions via open source.

The NDHA will be replicable in other organisations and will serve as an international model for the implementation of digital archives and preservation management.

Read more about 'Preservation' - Ex Libris Group's website

Read more about the partnership - Sun Microsystems website

Significant outcomes to date

  • INDIGO, a tool developed by the NDHA Programme, to enable staff to load digital objects into the NDHA's preservation system.
  • In collaboration with the British Library, a Web Curator Tool for selective web harvesting. More about the Web Curator Tool
  • An object management system, an interim system to store digital material collected by the National Library prior to the completion of the NDHA solution.
  • A tool for the online legal deposit of internet documents.

Background to the NDHA Programme

The NDHA Programme is part of a worldwide movement that recognises the importance of our digital heritage, and its fragility, due to the rapid evolution of technology and the temporary nature of the internet.

The National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa) Act 2003 requires the Library to collect, preserve, protect and make accessible digital collections, along with traditional paper collections, in accordance with collection and access policies, in ways that ensure current and future access to New Zealand's documentary heritage.

The Act also extended legal deposit to include electronic documents, such as CDs, DVDs and websites. This meant the National Library had to create ways of collecting and preserving these electronic documents and also ensure ongoing access to these items.

More about the National Library Act

To meet these expanded digital heritage archiving, preservation and access responsibilities the National Library required a digital archive and preservation management solution and the NDHA Programme was established.

NDHA Programme Development Partners

The NDHA Programme is working with Ex Libris Group, a library management systems vendor, and Sun Microsystems, a provider of open network computing systems to develop the NDHA.

Download the NDHA Programme Partnership Q&A

Peer Review Group

An international Peer Review Group (PRG) has been formed as an independent resource for the NDHA Programme.

The PRG consists of recognised thought leaders and innovators from the international library and academic communities. All have institutional expertise in the areas of digital preservation and permanent access.

NDHA Cross Government Group

The National Library shares the expertise it is developing with the rest of the public sector through the NDHA Cross Government Group, made up of 27 public sector organisations. The group has met quarterly since July 2004. It is a forum for the organisations to share digital preservation initiatives and issues.

Contact the NDHA Cross Government Group

The NDHA and the government's Digital Strategy

The government's Digital Strategy provides a framework for information and communications technology (ICT) in New Zealand.

Go to the Digital Strategy website

The NDHA will contribute to New Zealand's Digital Strategy by preserving New Zealand's digital memory under the National Library's guardianship and ensuring ongoing access, in accordance with collection and access policies, to its digital heritage collections.

The National Library led the development of the New Zealand Digital Content Strategy, which is part of the Digital Strategy. The digital content preserved and accessible from the NDHA will contribute significantly to the realisation of the New Zealand Digital Content Strategy.

More about the New Zealand Digital Content Strategy

Contact Details
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