Multi-lingual access for Auckland Museum's Online Collections
Ciara Arnot Community Advisor •
In 2020 we funded a range of projects and we are delighted to share the great mahi of Auckland War Memorial Museum.
James Taylor and the team at the Museum have been busy translating the user interfaces of Collections Online and Online Cenotaph into te reo Māori, alongside other website content, Cenotaph Stories, and information about Auckland Museum collections.
This mahi involved:
- consultation with staff
- compilation of a portfolio of material for translation
- vendor RFP process
- planning, implementation and deploy of te reo Māori UI by our internal, digital team
- uploading translated content to other Auckland Museum website pages.
While there is only a small percentage of collection records catalogued in Maori, earlier updates to Collections Online with a synonym list of Māori words and phrases mean users can now search using Māori words to find relevant collection material.
There were delays to the original timeline because of the COVID-19 lockdown. This fortuitously meant that they could launch during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, 14-20 Mahuru 2020.
As of 30 October 2020, there have been 7,000 views of Māori content on the Auckland Museum website, with steadily increasing growth in usage over time, approximately 150-200 views per day.
Looking to the future, the team is keen to undertake more detailed user research about the impact of this project, particularly on te reo fluent users, and kura kaupapa students.
InternetNZ
Each year InternetNZ gives out community grants to provide support for community-led initiatives that extend the availability, use, and benefit of the Internet and its associated technologies and applications in Aotearoa.
This initiative was a recipient of funding as part of our March 2020 grant round.