The National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa)

Abstract

The National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa) Act 2003 sets out the legal purpose and function of our national library. As there have been many developments since that legislation was drawn up, we decided to look ahead to 2030 and consider what might still be required of the National Library of New Zealand. During 2016 I consulted with stakeholders and staff about several system-level challenges facing the library sector and New Zealand as a country. The challenges focused on how to enable New Zealanders to access knowledge and share it more easily; how to ensure that New Zealanders have the right literacies to succeed; and how to ensure that we preserve knowledge for the future. Our stakeholders and staff supported a strategic focus on these three areas and reinforced the need to work in partnership to achieve change for New Zealand. We then developed a draft strategic directions document for public comment, outlining three areas of focus for the National Library along with examples of potential programmes under each area. This document proposed a new way of working for the National Library and a strong focus on cross-sector collaboration to ensure the best possible outcomes for New Zealanders. The public were asked to comment on the overall directions as well as the specific initiatives proposed and to reflect on the future role of the National Library. At the end of 2016 we published the final document on our website, setting out our strategic directions to 2030. We have called it Turning Knowledge into Value (National Library of New Zealand, 2016). In it, our new mission to 2030 states that we will create