The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography was originally published in five print volumes between 1990 and 2000. It comprised 3000 biographical essays about a wide range of deceased New Zealanders who had come to prominence by 1960. The Dictionary went online in 2001. In 2010 it was merged with Te Ara: the Encyclopedia of New Zealand to form the single largest reference work on New Zealand's history and society https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies
The combined Dictionary and Te Ara website is one of the largest works of scholarship ever undertaken in this country, and is unique in the world.
Since 2000 The Dictionary has been in hiatus, with the exception of a batch of 15 biographies that were published online in 2010-11. In 2017 the Ministry for Culture and Heritage decided to resume work on the Dictionary, and to publish a new batch of biographies online every year. The new programme commences with 20 new biographies of women which will be published in September this year to celebrate the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage.
In this presentation, senior historian Tim Shoebridge - the Dictionary’s programme manager, will speak about the challenges posed and opportunities offered by this new chapter in the Dictionary’s life.
These monthly Public History Talks are a collaboration between the National Library of New Zealand https://natlib.govt.nz/ and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage https://mch.govt.nz/
Recorded live at the National Library of New Zealand, 6 June 2018.
Imelda Bargas and Tim Shoebridge: New Zealand’s First World War Heritage
Margaret Sparrow: Rough on Women Abortion in 19th Century New Zealand
’I am the island of Niue, a small child that stands up to help the Kingdom of King George - Niue Island involvement in World War I’
Aroha Harris: New Perspectives on Māori History
Coal- the Rise and Fall of King Coal in New Zealand
Kate Hunter and Kirstie Ross: Holding On To Home
New Zealand English: is there more here than meets the eye and ear?
Judgments of all Kinds: Economic Policymaking in New Zealand 1945-84
'Captain Kindheart’s Crusade'
A Tasman tale?: New Zealand's Depression and Australia, 1930-39
The History of Gangs in New Zealand
The White Ships: New Zealand's First World War Hospital Ships
The Great Strike of 1913: ‘Industrial War’ in ‘the Workers’ Paradise’
Tramping in New Zealand, a History
The Red Cross Lens on New Zealand Social History
Writing fiction as a non-fiction writer
Friendly Fire: What happens when allies quarrel
The Present and the Future
The Eighties – A Retrospective View
The “Old” Public Service
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