Our History on the Chopping Block: National Library and Archives Face 12% Workforce Cut

The institutions charged with protecting Aotearoa’s documentary memory are facing another major round of job cuts, with a proposal to axe 47 full-time equivalent roles across the National Library and Archives New Zealand — and an acknowledgement from the agency that public services are likely to suffer.

The proposed restructure would cut around 12 percent of the workforce, affecting staff across Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin.

According to information released by the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi, the changes would leave the organisation with around 350 staff — approximately 15 percent fewer than two years ago.

And the union warns this may not be the end.

Archives Library New Zealand faces a Government requirement to reduce spending by 10 percent, raising the prospect of further restructuring and service reductions.

For the PSA, the significance goes well beyond another set of public service job losses.

This is an institution responsible for preserving millions of records, publications, photographs, manuscripts, government documents and taonga that collectively tell the story of Aotearoa.

Agency acknowledges services could be affected

PSA National Secretary Duane Leo says one of the most significant aspects of the proposal is the agency’s own acknowledgement to staff that the cuts are likely to affect service levels.

That means the debate is no longer simply about whether the organisation can become leaner or more efficient.

The PSA argues the proposal could directly affect how quickly records are preserved, catalogued and made available to New Zealanders.

Workers fear reduced staffing could mean the organisation increasingly concentrates on meeting minimum statutory requirements while other important preservation, research, education and public-access functions come under pressure.

The union intends to strongly oppose the proposed cuts during consultation.

Preservation teams face significant reductions

The scale of the proposed restructuring reaches deeply into specialist areas.

According to information supplied by the PSA, the preservation and conservation team would be reduced by 16 percent, while the digital preservation team faces a 19 percent reduction.

Collection description librarians and specialist roles would be disestablished, with that team reduced by 22 percent.

Research archivist, research librarian and librarian positions would be reduced by 18 percent.

The literacy and learning capability team faces an even larger reduction of 36 percent, with support for school libraries expected to shift further away from face-to-face assistance towards online delivery.

The proposal would also axe the music access service, while future exhibitions could increasingly become longer-term static displays.

The changes are proposed to take effect from 30 November.

The catalogue backlog could grow

One of the most immediate concerns raised by workers is what happens to material that has not yet been properly catalogued.

A library or archive can hold an extraordinary collection, but its value to the public depends on people being able to discover what is there.

The PSA says fewer specialist staff could result in a growing cataloguing backlog.

That could affect historians and academics, but it could equally affect ordinary whānau searching for family histories, genealogical records, photographs or documents connected to their tūpuna.

Researchers working on books, whakapapa, community histories or historical claims could also face longer waits for specialist assistance.

In some cases, material may technically exist within a collection but become considerably harder to discover without the staff required to describe and catalogue it.

Government records could take longer to process

Archives New Zealand also performs a fundamental role that extends beyond historical collections.

Government agencies including Police, the Courts and the health system generate records that must eventually be transferred, preserved and made accessible under public records requirements.

The PSA says staffing reductions could slow that process.

That matters because archives are not simply about events from a century ago.

They can contain information people need to understand decisions made about themselves and their families, establish rights, investigate government actions and hold public institutions accountable.

Records that cannot be efficiently processed, described or accessed undermine the very purpose of keeping them.

For Māori, these collections are taonga

There is an especially important Māori dimension to the debate.

Archives and library collections contain material documenting whakapapa, whenua, raupatu, Crown decision-making, petitions, correspondence, maps, photographs, Māori language material and the history of relationships between Māori and the state.

For iwi, hapū and whānau, those records can carry significance far beyond academic research.

They can help reconnect generations.

They can provide evidence about whenua.

They can reveal decisions made by government agencies.

They can support historical research and understanding of the Crown-Māori relationship.

They can also preserve the voices and experiences of tūpuna for generations yet to come.

The question therefore becomes not simply how cheaply the Government can operate an archive, but what value Aotearoa places on preserving and accessing its collective memory.

He Tohu and Te Tiriti require people, not simply technology

The PSA is also challenging any suggestion that artificial intelligence can simply fill gaps created by workforce reductions.

The union argues technology cannot replace the specialist knowledge required to preserve physical material, assess collections and guide people through millions of historical records.

One of the clearest examples is He Tohu, the permanent exhibition housing three of Aotearoa’s most important constitutional documents — He Whakaputanga, Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Women’s Suffrage Petition.

The PSA says knowledgeable staff remain essential to helping school groups and visitors understand the significance and historical context of those documents.

AI may become a useful tool for searching, transcription, description and other archival tasks, but the union argues it cannot simply substitute for archivists, librarians, conservators, researchers and educators.

Government’s public service cuts under fire

The restructuring also lands in the middle of a much larger political battle over the size of the public service.

The PSA says the Government’s drive for a smaller state is increasingly translating into reductions that affect actual services rather than simply removing bureaucracy.

Leo argues the proposed National Library and Archives cuts are another example of that shift.

The union is campaigning for what it calls a public good test, which would require agencies to properly assess the consequences for services, workers and communities before proceeding with major restructures.

The PSA also explicitly opposes the Coalition Government and is calling for a change of government at the 7 November election, making clear that its criticism sits within a wider political campaign against further public sector reductions.

The cost of losing expertise

The deeper problem with cutting specialist institutions is that capability can be difficult to rebuild.

Archivists, conservators, research librarians and digital preservation specialists develop expertise over years.

Once experienced people leave, replacing that institutional knowledge is not necessarily as simple as advertising the same position again several years later.

Digital preservation presents an especially significant challenge.

An increasing proportion of New Zealand’s history is now born digitally — government emails, databases, photographs, audiovisual material, websites and other electronic records.

Unlike a document placed safely in a box, digital information requires active management as technologies and formats change.

Reducing digital preservation capacity by a proposed 19 percent therefore comes at the same time the volume and complexity of digital material continues to grow.

Who protects the memory of a nation?

The Government’s wider argument for reducing public spending is based on controlling costs, improving efficiency and ensuring taxpayers receive value for money.

But National Library and Archives New Zealand presents a difficult test of what value actually means.

Some public institutions do not exist to generate a profit.

Their value is measured in what they preserve, what they make accessible and what they prevent from disappearing.

A document lost through inadequate preservation cannot necessarily be recreated.

Specialist knowledge lost through repeated restructuring can take years to rebuild.

And a historical record that cannot be found might as well not exist for the whānau searching for it.

The proposed cuts therefore raise a much bigger question than whether 47 FTE positions can be removed from an organisational chart.

They ask what kind of country Aotearoa wants to be when it comes to protecting its own memory.

For Māori in particular, whose history has too often been recorded, interpreted and held by Crown institutions, ensuring those records remain protected and accessible is not an optional extra.

Our archives contain the evidence of where we have come from. Te Tiriti, whakapapa, whenua records and the decisions of generations of governments sit within that national memory. Once the people responsible for protecting and unlocking that history disappear, getting that capability back may prove considerably harder than cutting it in the first place.

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