A chance meeting with Jennifer Middendorf, the Production Co-ordinator of the University of Canterbury’s CEISMIC programme has led to posts from this blog being preserved for posterity. She has found 480 posts which are earthquake-related and these have all been converted to PDF format. This means that in fifty years time, if WordPress has shut down, my posts will still be able to be read as part of a digital archive of material relating to the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011.
I’ve signed a Deed of Gift formally giving the University permission to use my content. At the time of the earthquakes some readers said that what I’d written would be of interest in the future, and this development affirms that. Jennifer was kind enough to say: “It’s going to be really exciting to have such a rich and interesting start to our Christchurch Bloggers collection, so thank you again for agreeing to let us include it.” This link takes you to my part of the archive., and I’m mentioned on their blog as well.
“My humble blog will still appear
when I have long, long gone from here.”
Ruth's Reflections 
What splendid news Ruth. People will study the earthquakes in Christchurch for many years to come. My youngest son did a project on the Hawkes Bay earthquake when he was at primary school and he recorded his grandfather’s experiences of that event. The digital world offers useful ways of recording things…..as long as the technological changes are kept up with.
Now I am going to look at the links you included.
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It is certainly amazing how much can now be sorted and archived.
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481 blog posts plus photos is a wonderful contribution to the archive Ruth. I believe that National Library harvest blog posts from around New Zealand too.
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I think the CEISMIC collection is linked to the National Library as well.
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It looks like it from the information on the UC website about the CEISMIC project.
I had seen Russell Brown on Public Address mention that National Library were harvesting blog entries on topics/issues they thought were relevant from around the country.
I like that yours received a “Deed of Gift”. That has the ring of older days when the written word included a seal or some other indication of importance. Our stories and written words as so often found via computers and blogs now!
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Some form of ‘Deed of Gift’ seems to be standard for all the University’s archives, to clarify who may have access and when. I’ve seen something similar when donating VolCan archives to the MacMillan Brown Library at UC.
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I’m sure it is a legal requirement covering copyright and access etc. It appealed to my imagination!
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Ruth, this is fantastic news. I’ve always felt and sometimes said here that your posts have historical significance.
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Thanks, Juliet. I’ve appreciated your ongoing support.
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Very exciting news Ruth. And it seems like the best part is that they did the selection of posts and formatting for you!
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Yes, I really appreciated not having to do anything extra. Plus Jennifer has said she may come back in six months time and capture some more posts.
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That would be excellent because every day your blog captures something ‘new’ in the central city.
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Well, almost every day (she said modestly).
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🙂
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[…] tangible legacy opportunities given to us by archives. In November 2013 Ruth mentioned, in this post , her Deed of Gift to the Canterbury CEISMIC project. I thought this was a wonderful idea […]
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