The first run of the Nelson Photo News is a rare and unique photographic record of life in Nelson in the early 1960’s and 1970’s – a time of rapid social and cultural change. The serial captures personal and community events through photographs and lively commentary.
As the editor Barry Simpson stated in the first issue: “Our experience …. indicates that many people allow the first issue or two to be destroyed, which is regretted later….subscribers grow to value the pictorial record of community life.”
Unfortunately most early issues have been discarded, and over the run only a handful of complete sets are believed to exist in private collections; Nelson Public Libraries and the Nelson Provincial Museum each have incomplete sets.
The Friends of the Nelson Library, supported by the Nelson Public Library and the Nelson Provincial Museum, have been responding to community pressure to do something about preserving and making accessible this valuable resource. The project has been scoped and is ready to go – with adequate funding
Wed 20 May 2011: This project is now live at: http://photonews.org.nz/nelson/index.html
Comments
It’s part of my history and I would love to look back over the photos without having to travel to Nelson.
Thanks
Nelson today has strong family links for many people here. Photos of Nelson people and activities in the 1960s and 1970 will give pleasure to many locals including not only those with family ties here, but also more recent arrivals who have made good friends with them.
This sounds so good, as a newcomer to the Nelson area I would be fascinated to see these images. Great idea, good luck,
Lynn, Mapua
Who holds the copyrights to the paper?
The two owner/editors (both still living) who hold the copyright to the first two series of the PhotoNews, which we are proposing to digitise, have given permission to publish. This will be under a Creative Commons Licence (share and share alike, non commercial).
Are you planning to have these placed into the Papers Past platform?
hi – this was discussed very briefly with the National Library. I am aware that they their programme for Papers Past is fully committed and the highly pictorial nature of PhotoNews may be problematic. Something to be explored in the future
I agree this would be a great resource to digitise, and I am sure the National Library could find a way to deliver the pictorial material if it were digitised — though as Nicola notes, we are committed for this financial year.
I have two suggestions to add.
First, there are a few other “editions” of photo news around the country that are candidates for digitisation because the copyright holders are local and willing to work with their local libraries. I believe Gisborne is in a similar situation, with respect to their local photo news, for example. It would be great to do as many as we can.
Second, I have been talking to people who contribute to NZ pages on Wikipedia, and they are desperate for photographs of prominent New Zealanders – especially politicians – from this period that can be used on Wikipedia (under a creative commons license). However, these are really hard to find as the politicians (or their estates) are reluctant to distribute images under these terms. It may be that the photo news can solve this problem if they contain photos of politicians, for example, as they visit the regions.
Anyway, I know you’ll persevere with this project, and I am sure we’ll talk about it again :-)
Gordon
Programme Manager Digitisation
National Library of New Zealand
It is possible that the National Library does not yet understand that the perception is that Paper Past is the platform for New Zealand Newspapers.
If stuff that is proposed for the platform is problematic – then maybe the platform itself is problematic and needs a rethink. If the NLNZ is fully committed then how can others help =- if they may offer dollars and files – is that a problem.
If the national platform for Digital New Zealand Newspapers cannot respond to an offer for content maybe something needs rethinking.
Oh and where is the list of what NLNZ is committed to – what papers are coming on stream and when – and are we wasting time by getting over being anxious about it must be OCR’ed – plain images are better than nothing.
It seems that a very explicit partnership model could help us ramp up this effort – how can people add value – offer papers, dollars, time to proofread…
Surely much of the need for digital images in Wikipedia/Wikimedia et al could be met by NLNZ with the vast array of stuff in Timeframes, etc – except its just really hard to use and link to.and reuse
So – to try and divert the concept of PaperPast being the national platform for Papers Past seems a red herring.
I am sure we will talk about this again }-}
Hi Paul:
There’s a lot packed in there — where to start?
The Paper Past platform is no longer an issue. There’s no problem with pictorial material on Papers Past now (formerly we were bitonal-only; since Kai Tiaki went live we have had greyscale material and colour capability). We’ve load tested it to demonstrate it will scale for five years of projected user & content growth. Little descendants of Papers Past are appearing all over the show (see http://www.dlconsulting.com/featured_projects.php for more “Veridian” sites ).
But aside from the technical, there are two challenges.
The first is organisational. We don’t have the people and processes in place to get our own increasing digitisation online at a good rate, nevermind anyone else’s. We’re working on fixing this right now — but while we’re getting our house in order we are not emphasising other matters (like digitisation and collaboration) as much as we could. We plan to have it sorted by June so we can accommodate our own newspaper digitisation programme and start supporting others from July 2010 with a partnership model as you suggest above. It isn’t easy to organise though
- I appreciate your patience ;).The second is more philosophical, and that is “what is Papers Past”. It used to be a purely newspaper site, so periodicals like Kai Tiaki and the Photo News were arguably unsuitable for Papers Past. However, in reality that was never really the case, as it has always had periodicals like Progress or the NZ Illustrated Magazine. I expect we’ll add more periodicals, but will this dilute the site’s character and usefulness as a newspaper resource? I don’t know.
Finally, we circulated a list of the titles for this (financial) year back in 2009, though I’m not sure it is online. However, we have found capacity for a few new titles — assuming we can sort out the rights — so I’ll talk to Chelsea about re-publicising these soon.
Gordon
PS: I flatly disagree with the suggestion that OCR (and/or rekeying) is not necessary. A topic to discuss over a beer, perhaps.
As the Wikipedia Contributor that Paul mentions above I am very interested in these Photos. However material that goes on wikimedia (where it is shared between different wikipedia editions) has to allow commercial use.
The commercial use comes about since people might want to sell versions of wikipedia articles (in electronic or book form) or have mirrors of articles with advertising or use photos on their website (with google ads), or publish in a company newsletter, or simple use a photos in a book. All these sort of activities are excluded by “no commercial use” restrictions so these sort of photos can only be used under “fair use” “no alternative photograph” type restrictions.
Could the copyright holders be asked if they would consider removing the “non commercial” restriction at least for some photographs. I’ve found in many cases people are worried about a large company making millions from their photos and then getting nothing which in 99% of cases is not going to happen.
Releasing lower resolution versions suitable for online and illustrative purposes but not for (say) advertising backgrounds might also be an option.
Simon Lyall
WikiProject New Zealand Content task force
One of the reasons a Creative Commons Licence (share and share alike, non commercial) permission was sought is because the images are primarily of people still alive.
The era of the images is the nineteen sixties and seventies and many of them lend themselves to being used in “retro” style advertising. People finding images of themselves used in this way very likely would be offended.
Both the copyright holders specifically asked that the images not be used commercially.
I understand their position and concerns. Releasing the content even under limited access is better than not releasing it at all.
My concern is mainly that there are almost no resources of postwar photographs available under wikipedia-compatible licenses of often important subjects ( Prime Ministers, MPs, Mayors, Nationally Representative sports-people, Popular entertainers, Cultural figures, etc ).
Would it be possible to have a defined way to request the re-licensing of selected photos in the collection (assuming this project went ahead)? For example Wikipedia only has a low quality picture of Bill Rowling and no photographs of any (that I could see) of the other MPs for Nelson, Buller, West Coast, Westland and Tasman for the last 50 years or so.
These magazines record much social history of Nelson and districts and record through the photographs the people, well-known and not so well-known of the region. This is invaluable for not only genealogical research but for history researchers also.
This would be fantastic. I am the proud owner of virtually every issue.
By Jill, Friday 26 February, 2010 3.10pm
This publication deserves to be digitised.
Sara Chapman, Collingwood, Golden Bay.
The Photo News magazines are part of my history. Oh the excitement on the day they went on sale each month, and the competition in our house to be first to read it. I fully support this publication being digitised. On a personal level it would be great to be able revisit these magazines. On a wider aspect, there is huge content of historical value to the Nelson region and its people.
Tessa. Tuesday 02 March 2010
Easier access for everyone.
Rex Lucas
Valuable, unselfconscious social history that powerfully evokes that period. If you were living in Nelson at that time you’re almost guaranteed to feature in the Photo News!
Martin Hucklesby
I remember this publication well and although I no longer live in Nelson I think it was a wonderful record of life in New Zealand at the time and would be a terrific candidate for digitisation.
The Nelson Photo News is a wonderful snapshot of life in Nelson in the halcyon days of the 60’s and 70’s before cellphones and computers, video games and fast foods. Digitization would extend the availability of the images to more people researching family history or social history and enrich those stories.
Judith Fitchett Nelson
A lot of people who have moved away from Nelson have “discovered” their heritage and have fond memories of seeing articles/pictures of themselves in the magazine regarding sporting achievements, their wedding/engagement, and general news items. If this information is not collected and made readily available then it may be lost forever. I happen to have several old copies of the magazine myself, collecting dust on my book shelf and every now and then take great delight in showing doubting friends/colleagures photos of my sporting activities in the dim, dark past when I was young, fit and just a wee bit slimmer than I am now.
I was born in Nelson 1950. Starting in the early ’60’s I sold Photo News door to door around Haven Road and the Port hills for a number of years.
I’ve lived in Sydney for 20 years now, and often think of those days, when the tide came to the north side of Haven road.
I would love to be able to see copies of those great pictorial records online.
Kevin Parkes.
I was born in Nelson 1950. Starting in the early ’60’s I sold Photo News door to door around Haven Road and the Port hills for a number of years.
I’ve lived in Sydney for 20 years now, and often think of those days, when the tide came to the north side of Haven road.
I would love to be able to see copies of those great pictorial records online.
Kevin Parkes.
Nelson Photo News is now live!
photonews.org.nz