A Class of their Own

Archives are the records of business transactions and their informational and evidentiary values are not dependent on their physical form. While the great bulk of the archives held in the Christchurch Office consist of text written in ink on paper, we also hold many maps and plans, photographic prints and negatives, and other forms of record. Few archives, however, could be more 'non-standard' than the examples shown here.

These images are good illustrations of the reality that many different items can potentially be archives. On display is a sample of a cable to be used in the bush at Bealey and Otira, as part of the West Coast Telegraph from 1866. The shirt collar is evidence presented in a divorce file from 1929. Lastly, the material samples are from a file of the Trans Antarctic Expedition, one of several options being considered for the party's clothing.

Objects in our holdings are rare, and all the more interesting for that reason. However, an increasing amount of non-paper digital material is now being created by Government offices as a matter of course. These are electronic records, and present new challenges and opportunities for the archival profession.