(20 Nov 2025) On October 17, 2025, COAR and Open Access Australasia co-hosted a meeting on shared repository infrastructure, moderated by Martin Borchert and Kathleen Shearer. The discussion focused on the evolving repository landscape in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand and the growing international movement toward shared platforms. As in many other countries, institutions in the region…
(17 Oct 2025) Utaina, one of the largest audiovisual digitization projects in the world and the largest in New Zealand to date, has concluded. Over 400,000 items from the collections held by Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa and Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o…
(30 Sep 2025) Several universities have given up using software to detect the use of Artificial Intelligence in student work. Massey University made the decision recently, and Auckland and Victoria University also did not use it. For Massey, it followed a decision to stop using automated systems to monitor for cheating in online exams after a major…
(25 Jul 2025) Universities in Australia and New Zealand are uniting in a cross-sector initiative to negotiate open access publishing agreements with major academic publishers. Spearheaded by the Council of Australasian University Librarians (CAUL), Universities Australia, and Universities New Zealand – Te Pōkai Tara, the joint effort aims to secure more sustainable and transparent deals starting January…
(6 May 2025) A law student at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) said students had been “left in the lurch” after an announcement on Monday that said next month’s exams for two law subjects would have to be handwritten. In an announcement from the Dean, Professor Geoff McLay, he said he had become “increasingly worried…
(9 Apr 2025) Open educational resources (OERs)—that is, free-to-use monographs, textbooks, and other educational materials—are having something of a moment in Australia and New Zealand. Through a very high membership (42 participating institutions in 2024), the Council of Australasian University Librarians (CAUL)’s OER Collective has been a significant driver of interest and participation in institutional publishing of OERs through libraries.…
(6 Apr 2025) A Wellington Library is trialling a new way of cataloguing its mātauranga Māori books, organising them by atua (deity) rather than by the Dewey Decimal system. Bridget Jennings is the Senior Cataloguing Specialist at Wellington City Libraries, she said they wanted to create a structure for the library’s collections based on how…
(25 Mar 2025) Open Source Software (OSS) “plays a critical role in the global technology ecosystem. It fosters collaboration, transparency, and innovation, providing a foundation for modern computing and research.” This paper presents the results of a birds-of-a-feather workshop held at the 2025 eResearch NZ / eRangahau Aotearoa conference in February. Find out more here.
(20 Mar 2025) Abstract: Introduction: Libraries hold large amounts of bibliographic data, with great potential for enrichment with linked open data. The New Zealand Thesis Project explored this potential by uploading thesis metadata records from New Zealand institutional repositories to Wikidata, a collaborative linked data knowledge base. Description of Project: Nine New Zealand tertiary institutions collaborated…
(20 Mar 2025) The Tertiary Education Commission [of New Zealand] has indicated some tertiary institutions could face funding cuts next year. The commission’s annual guidance to institutions said they should not assume their funding would increase or even be maintained next year. “Total funding available for Vote Tertiary Education will be limited and we…