Array
(
[entityType] => ITEM
[entity] => Array
(
[contextId] => aims
[id] => R25716980
[idSort] => R25716980
[image] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[url] => https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE39995380&dps_func=thumbnail
[type] => Reproduction
[linkText] => IE39995380
)
)
[name] => From: N.Z.W. [New Zealand War] Medal Commissioners, Wellington Received: 30 March 1871 Subject: Interim report of the War Medal Commissioners
[url] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[url] => https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE39995380
[type] => Reproduction
[linkText] => IE39995380
)
)
[identifier] => Array
(
[BoxNumber] => Array
(
[0] => 1
)
[PartNumber] => Array
(
[0] => [1]
)
[FormerArchivesReference] => Array
(
[0] => AAYS 8660, Item 26; AD31, Item 26
)
[priref] => Array
(
[0] => 141460
)
[RecordNumber] => Array
(
[0] => CD 71/323
)
)
[parentId] => 27277
[additionalDescriptionItem] => Includes - Nominal Return of officers and Men of the Colonial Forces who have made application for the New Zealand War Medal for services performed prior to the 31st December 1866 & whose claims are admitted by the Commissioners; Roll B - Nominal Return of officers and Men of the Colonial Forces who have made application for the New Zealand War Medal for services performed subsequent to the 31st December 1866 & whose claims are admitted by the Commissioners
[conditionsOfAccess] => Open
[digitalRecordInArchive] => 1
[hasBeginningDate] => Array
(
[type] => YearStart
[normalizedValue] => 1871-01-01T00:00:00.0Z
[dateQualifier] => Array
(
[0] => exact
[1] => yearOnly
)
)
[hasEndDate] => Array
(
[type] => YearEnd
[normalizedValue] => 1871-01-01T00:00:00.0Z
[dateQualifier] => Array
(
[0] => exact
[1] => yearOnly
)
)
[hasOrHadCategory] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[name] => Text
[type] => ContentType
)
)
[isAssociatedWithPlace] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[name] => Wellington repository
)
)
[isOrWasIncludedIn] => Array
(
[0] => 27277
)
[issuableStatus] => Issuable
[itemType] => Item
[managementRelation] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[name] => Department of Maori Affairs, Head Office
[type] => transferring
[hasBeginningDate] => Array
(
[normalizedValue] => 1989-01-01T00:00:00.0Z
[dateQualifier] => Array
(
[0] => yearOnly
)
)
[hasEndDate] => Array
(
[normalizedValue] => 1989-01-01T00:00:00.0Z
[dateQualifier] => Array
(
[0] => yearOnly
)
)
[itemType] => Agency
[relationHasSource] => AAMK
)
)
[metadataRestrictionStatus] => Open
[rdfType] => record
[recordIsMissing] =>
[ricType] => Physical
[ricTypeLegacy] => Item
[setSpec] => items
)
)
Item
R25716980
1871
Physical
Open
Includes - Nominal Return of officers and Men of the Colonial Forces who have made application for the New Zealand War Medal for services performed prior to the 31st December 1866 & whose claims are admitted by the Commissioners; Roll B - Nominal Return of officers and Men of the Colonial Forces who have made application for the New Zealand War Medal for services performed subsequent to the 31st December 1866 & whose claims are admitted by the Commissioners
An alternative search system for Archives NZ, inspired by the beautiful simplicity of the beloved Archway system.
π How does it work?
The search results displayed here are sourced directly from the backend of Archives NZ's publicly available Collections Search system, in almost exactly the same way that the official website works, but organised and displayed differently.
To start with, you can do a straight-forward search with a few keywords and an optional date range and whether to focus on digitised items. You then have the option to filter the results futher (such as by Series and Format - photos, documents, etc).
You can highlight search keywords in the results by clicking the orange text in 'X results matching {keywords}'
The Advanced Search allows you to search with criteria such as showing only Series or Agency results, records held in a specific location, plus sorting and grouping options.
You can also browse within a Series or Accession by clicking the Series name. Search for records within that Series by using the search box on that page.
Digitised records can be viewed by clicking on the thumbnail or the 'Show Scan' links. This embeds a simple viewer directly in the page. You can switch to the official Archives NZ viewer by clicking the π Archives NZ Source link under the viewer.
Reporting by RNZ's Phil Pennington produced an internal Archives NZ report on Collections Search, describing: "Several significant issues ... slowness, a lack of booking functionality and an external user design that makes accessing archival records difficult. The level of user experience in place now is well below what was in place before the roll out". The report goes on to detail a number of privacy breaches, "continued delays by the vendor" on software improvements, and outages of 29 days in total, out of the ten months since launch.
This alternative search system aims to address some of the shortcomings of Collections Search, such as:
Only 12 search results are displayed at a time
Pages load very slowly
Full name of search result is cut off after a few words
No direct link to scanned documents
Type of record (military records, divorce files, land records, etc) and access status is not shown
It is almost impossible to browse records within a Series or Accession
π Are my searches private?
Great question! In a nutshell, your searches are visible to me, but anonymous.
Your search queries on this system are recorded in logs for a period of time, without any user-identifiable information associated with them, for debugging purposes.
I have no way of identifying you as a person, or associating your search queries with you.
This website does not use Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or any other analytics/tracking software.
π Who made this?
I'm Luke Howison, a freelance web developer with an interest in genealogy. I have written a few homebrew tools to assist with this research, such as NZ Ancestor Search Helper.