The Westland District Library is helping make the history and people of the West Coast more visible by opening up its collections, increasing accessibility, and undertaking digital projects. The Covid-19 recovery funding package (New Zealand Libraries Partnership Programme) enabled the employment of a Digital Discovery Librarian, Dr. Mike Dickison, (from December 2020 to June 2022)  to initiate these projects under the umbrella West Coast Stories Online.

Digitised Books

The Tiny Books Project got its name because it began with the scanning and uploading of the 1921 pamphlet Hokitika: The Birth of the Borough. This local-history publication exists in just a handful of libraries in the world, and our copy was kept locked away in the History Room cabinet.

Using the website Wikisource, volunteers around the world were able to proofread and correct the text of this and other out-of-copyright scanned books. The corrected texts were them able to be issued by the library as e-books, using the app Libby. This has made them available to readers all over the South Island, and the digitised books have been read far more than than when they were kept in the History Room. The scanning and volunteer proofreading process continues as part of the West Coast Task Force. Books completed include:

• Alexander, Vonnie. (2010). Gillespies Beach Beginnings: a Fox Glacier family saga. Christchurch: Alexander Publications. 110pp. Family history of Gillespies Beach and Weheka/Fox Glacier.
• Downey, J.F. (1928). Quartz Reefs of the West Coast Mining District, New Zealand. Wellington: Government Printer. 144pp. Technical survey of the West Coast's gold-bearing deposits and attempts to mine them.
• Du Faur, Freda. (1915). The Conquest of Mount Cook. London: Allan and Unwin. 250pp. An account of four seasons mountaineering in the Southern Alps.
• Evans, D. J. (1921). Hokitika, N.Z.. Hokitika: Hokitika Guardian Print. 24pp. A pamphlet on the history of Hokitika and its street names.
• Harper, Henry William. (1914). Letters from New Zealand, 1857-1911. London: Hugh Rees Ltd. 357pp. Correspondence.
• Hopkins, Isaac. (1907). Bee-Culture (2nd ed.). NZ Dept of Agriculture. Bulletin No. 5. 35pp. A short beekeeping manual.
• Lord, E. Iveagh. (1921). Revised ballads of Bung and Other Verses Greymouth: Grey River Argus. 16pp. Pamphlet of comic poetry about the denizens of the Recreation Hotel, Greymouth.
• Lord, E. Iveagh (1939). Old Westland. Auckland: Whitcombe and Tombs. 270pp. History of Westland up to the gold rush, prepared for the 1940 centennial.
• Lowth, Alys. (1906). Emerald Hours In New Zealand. Melbourne : Whitcombe and Tombs. 128pp. Travelogue with lots of photos.
• Marriner, George R. (1908). The Kea: a New Zealand problem. Marriner Bros. & Co. 151pp. Examination of the reports that the kea attacked and killed sheep.
• Moreland, A. Maud. (1916). Through South Westland (2nd ed.). London: Whitcombe and Tombs. 220pp. Travels to Haast and Mt Aspiring.
• Preshaw, George Ogilvy. (1888). Banking Under Difficulties. Melbourne: Edwards, Dunlop & Co.180pp. Memoir of Australian and West Coast goldfields.
• Robley, Horatio Gordon. (1915). Pounamu : Notes on New Zealand Greenstone. London: T.J.S. Guilford & Co. 83pp. The first Pākehā book on pounamu carving.
• Waite, Reuben. (1869). A Narrative of the Discovery of the West Coast Gold-Fields. Nelson. 30pp. Narrative of early gold exploration.

Wikipedia Project

In a collaboration with the Left Bank Art Gallery in Greymouth, Digital Discovery Librarian Dr Mike Dickison undertook a project to highlight West Coast artists by writing Wikipedia articles and clearing copyrighted images of themselves and their work. Artists covered include Marilyn Rea-Menzies, Alison Hale, and Brent Trolle. He also ran workshops for artists on NZ copyright law and how they could increase their online visibility. Other articles created or expanded include Barrytown Flats (part of a "Wikiblitz" with members of the Barrytown community), Lou Sanson, Floods in Greymouth (during a Greymouth Wikipedia meetup), and Pounamu Pathway

. Wikipedia work continues under the banner of the West Coast Task Force.

Digital Westland

Our Digital Discovery Librarian 2020–2022 kept a blog, Digital Westland, covering topics like

• clearing book copyrights (3 Aug 2021)
• correctly crediting photos when reused (April 6, 2021)
• using Wikisource to digitise and proofread works (Jan 27, Feb 26, and Aug 19, 2021)
• cleaning up scanned photos (28 Sep 2021)
• the history of the Westland District Library (Nov 4, 2021)

The complete blog contents have been archived here