The New Zealand Gazette Moves into the Digital Age

On Monday 20 October, the New Zealand Gazette was published completely online bringing to a close 173 years as a purely printed publication. First published in 1841 as the official government newspaper, the Gazette website gazette.govt.nz, replaces the printed edition as the authoritative source of New Zealand government notices.

The Gazette is the government’s journal of constitutional record and is divided into commercial and government notices. It covers notification of bankruptcies, business proceedings, land notices, parliamentary notices, and notices from government departments and agencies.

Gazette Manager Patrick Geddes said, “The move to a fully online environment is a significant milestone for the Gazette and brings to a close the project to improve functionality and access for clients.

“With an entirely electronic lifecycle, the Gazette is more responsive to publishing times and offers greater access for a range of different users to view Gazette notices.”

The Gazette also offers opportunities for re-use of electronic content by visitors. For example, the ‘Speech from the Throne’ delivered by the Governor-General at the State Opening of Parliament can be viewed and printed off in PDF format at no cost.

“With the creation of a fully online publishing platform where notices are created, published and then archived digitally, we have delivered to our goal of moving the Gazette online,” Mr Geddes added.

Michele Clarke, The Gazette’s Chief Publisher and Team Leader said, “The project brought together the National Library’s Digital Preservation and Collection teams to formulate the procedure to seamlessly load published notices into the National Digital Heritage Archive.

“This fulfils the legislative requirement for Gazette preservation and is an example for the growing demand for preserving information that is digitally generated.”

Find out more about the Gazette and view the latest issue at https://gazette.govt.nz/

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