COVID-19 coronavirus update
On 14 May, New Zealand moved to Alert Level 2. Careful consideration has gone into how to resume our services, in line with government guidelines, to ensure the safety of our customers and staff.
Thank you for your patience during this time. We are excited to welcome you back to Archives New Zealand.
We will review the status of our services regularly as the situation evolves and update this page accordingly. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook for notifications of changes to this page and our services.
Read more about the status of our services below. Please note that there may be some delays to our usual turnaround times as we are dealing with an increase in demand.
Reading rooms
Our reading room service across all four offices will resume on a by appointment only basis the week beginning 2 June 2020. Appointment requests can be made by filling out this form. We require at least two full working days’ notice to be able to process your request.
As the service will be limited under COVID-19 health and safety physical distancing guidelines, no research advice will be offered in the reading rooms. Priority will be given to researchers who are self-sufficient. Once you have submitted an appointment request, an archivist will be in touch to assess your needs. If we can service your request via our remote reference service, this will be advised.
Our reading room opening hours will remain as follows:
Auckland and Wellington
Closed Monday and Tuesday; Open Wednesday to Friday 9am to 5pm
Christchurch and Dunedin
Open Monday to Friday 9am to 1pm
If you have any other questions about reading room use under Alert Level 2, please view our FAQs under COVID-19 Alert Level 2 page
.
Copying/digitisation
Our digitisation on demand service will also resume the week beginning 2 June 2020. Requests may take longer than our usual turnaround time to process due to an increase in demand. Thank you for your patience while we get back up to speed.
Please use the Ask an Archivist form to submit a request for digitisation. We’ll send you a secure, electronic payment link to complete and confirm your request. Be sure to include the archival reference of the record you want digitised in your request; this will help speed up the process for you.
On a temporary basis, we will be reducing the base charge for remote copying requests and reference services from $50 to $25 from Wednesday 27 May 2020.
Research enquiries
Researchers are welcome to submit enquiries through our website
.
On a temporary basis, we have reduced the base fee for remote research assistance from $50 to $25, starting from 27 May 2020.
Government loans
Our government loans service resumed on 18 May 2020. Some requests may take longer than our stated turnaround times to process. Urgent requests and requests received prior to and during lockdown are being prioritised.
Records can be returned to the office from which they were requested. No charges will apply for any returns that became overdue during the lockdown period.
Please refer to the reading rooms section of this page above for information on arranging to view records in the reading room.
If you have already submitted a request, we will be in touch to let you know its status.
If you have any requests directly related to COVID-19 we can treat these as urgent.
Please contact the following for information:
Auckland: auckland.archives@dia.govt.nz
Wellington: government.loans@dia.govt.nz
Christchurch: christchurch.archives@dia.govt.nz
Dunedin: dunedin.archives@dia.govt.nz
Abuse in Care - Royal Commission of Inquiry
Responses to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care
resumed the week beginning 18 May 2020.
As we are not yet at full capacity, some requests may take longer than our stated turnaround times to process. Urgent requests and requests received prior to and during lockdown will be prioritised.
Please refer to the reading rooms section of this page above for information on arranging to view records in the reading room. If you have already submitted a request, we will be in touch to let you know its status.
Information management during COVID-19
We continue to regulate the public recordkeeping system. Requirements and advice for public offices and local authorities are found under Manage Information, along with recent COVID-19 related updates:
Contact us if you have any Information Management challenges you want to share or questions you would like answered by emailing: rkadvice@dia.govt.nz