University collections in Aotearoa New Zealand: active past, uncertain future

Abstract

Stepping up partnerships with mainstream museums is a new path being taken by a number of university museums in New Zealand — and for many of them, their very survival is at stake. Neville Hudson is a geologist by profession and has been collection manager of palaeontological collections and teaching resources manager in the Department of Geology at the University of Auckland since 1996. He has recently also taken responsibility for the rocks and minerals collections. Jane Legget has worked in museums in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. She is currently a co‐manager of the New Zealand Museum Standards project, an initiative of the National Services of Te Papa — the Museum of New Zealand, and an associate lecturer in Museum Studies at Massey University. She is the author of Local Heroines: A Travel Guidebook to Women’s History in Great Britain (London, Pandora Press, 1994).