Content scope and principles

Scope of content in DigitalNZ Search

DigitalNZ makes New Zealand digital content easier to find, share, and use, and we are adding more content all the time. 

We will consider adding content to our search service if it helps us meet that goal. Submitted content has to have a connection and relevance to New Zealand Aotearoa. So,

• It's about New Zealand, New Zealanders, or New Zealand subjects and issues, or
• It was created in NZ, or 
• It was made by a NZer or a NZ community, or
• It has a connection to a notable NZer.

Also, new content has to have metadata (machine readable content descriptions) that point to an object. Right now, our public service doesn't include indexes or finding aids for physical, real-world stuff. Digital images, sound files, videos, multimedia files, and authored text (like web pages and documents) are the kind of things we're looking for.

Content principles

These are the guidelines we use to prioritise our work programme.

Overall, we're aiming to making NZ content easier to find, share, and use, and these things help. So if your content meets all of these principles then it will be high in our "to do" list.

• Your organisation accepts the terms of use for contributing metadata.
• The content can be reused. We have an enabling reuse guide.
• The content has metadata we can automatically include. Auto-updating XML sitemaps, RSS, or OAI-PMH complient feeds mean we can keep your content up to date.
• Both the digital objects and metadata are good quality. For example, there should be links to your (re)use and reproduction conditions, links to thumbnails when they're needed, and no watermarks on the content. Good metadata makes your content more findable.
• The content is a publically funded creation and cannot currently be found easily online.
• The content fills a demonstrable gap in our current results. For example, there are already people searching for it on DigitalNZ, something similar isn't already available, or the content is particularly unique in some way.
• The content's metadata can be (re)used for commercial and non-commercial purposes.
• Access to large thumbnails and/or high resolution images is allowed.

We consider all content suggestions that fit into our scope, but it has to at least meet some of these principles. If we agree to harvest your metadata, we may ask that you commit to ongoing improvements to your site, content, and/or metadata so that it will meet more of the DigitalNZ content principles. We're always really happy to provide advice that will help you do this.