A wardrobe-sized poetry-spewing machine that looks like a steampunk Tardis has been set up at the National Library to celebrate the 21st anniversary of Papers Past, the digital archive of New Zealand and Pacific print publications.
The machine, complete with flashing lights and an old thermal printer inside, is “a little bit like a time machine”, according to the National Library’s digital experience director Tim Kong.
Installed on Friday and unveiled on Monday in the National Library’s main entrance off Molesworth St in the capital, for several months it will allow members of the public to pull a lever.
With a flash of light, a whir of noises and a year countdown, the machine will then print out a randomly-generated poem from the Papers Past collection for people to take home.
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Department of Internal Affairs staff scanned more than 90 million articles in the Papers Past collection to find 100 poems written by authors pre-1920.
Those poems, written by the likes of author Katherine Mansfield, former Prime Minister Alfred Domett and everyday Kiwis, were then programmed into the machine by the National Library’s new media specialist Sebastian Blair, who also helped build the structure.
The machine has been unveiled a week out from the country’s National Poetry Day on August 26.
“It’s a really fun thing. It will be interesting to see how it will be used,” Kong said.
Three panel discussions have also been organised by the National Library to celebrate the anniversary of the Papers Past website, where panellists including Stuff’s Pou Tiaki editor Carmen Parahi, The Press editor Kamala Hayman, Professor Caroline Daley from the University of Auckland and researcher Ian F Grant will discuss Papers Past’s different research uses.
Launched in 2001, Papers Past contains a digital collection of text items from Aotearoa and the Pacific for anybody to search or browse. It holds historical newspapers, magazines and journals, letters and diaries, parliamentary papers and books.
Each year it grows in visitor numbers, now having around 30 million page views from about two million visitors annually.
As Aotearoa rolled out its new history curriculum, Papers Past would become an even more valuable resource for study and learning, National Library service manager Emerson Vandy said.
Kong said Papers Past was a valuable resource which had shifted the research landscape, and was a particularly useful tool for people investigating genealogy.
Free panel discussions facilitated by Alexander Turnbull Library Māori curator Paul Diamond will be held in Wellington on August 18, Christchurch on September 12 and Auckland on September 30. Also available on Zoom in Wellington and Auckland. Visit natlib.govt.nz/events for details.
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