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The library of the War Memorial Museum in Auckland was searched on 21 and 22 November 2023. The publication Dom i svijet (Home and the World) was found, which was published in two issues in 1932 in Perth, Australia. Until now, it was not known where the copies were kept. This copy (issue 1) is available in the library only recently because it arrived as part of a legacy from a private collection. The publication is significant for research into the history of publishing activities of Croats in Australia, but its discovery confirms the assumption of the Croatian Emigrant Press project that some of the lost publications are in private collections. Digitization of this and another publication has been agreed. Digitization will be carried out during 2024, and the publications will be available in the Croatian Emigrant Press repository.

In Kaitaia and Dargaville on November 19 and 20, meetings were held with members of Dalmatian clubs. The book Their faraway home was presented to them, and in the conversation parts of the research related to these towns were highlighted. In particular, they discussed the possibilities of researching and finding lost publications – for example, the newspaper Glas istine, which is known to have been published in Dargaville at the beginning of the 20th century, but not a single copy has been found to date. In addition to the talks, a visit to the Gumdiggers Park was also organized, where there is a reconstruction of the settlements where the first settlers from Croatia lived in New Zealand. In the museum shop, publications and semi-publications related to Croats were found. The semi-publication The Gumfield Collection: 100 years on: looking back 1898-1940 from 2015 is particularly interesting, on the basis of which a book of the same title was published in 2018, and later (2018 and 2023) the book The Gumfields: Northern Wairoa to the Far North: 120 years on: looking back.

Meetings with representatives of Croatian clubs were held in Whangarei, Kaitaia and Awanui on November 17, 18 and 19, 2023. Several private collections were researched and new publications and semi-publications (mainly so-called family books) were found. Digitization of one author’s book and one manuscript was agreed upon. Digitization is planned for 2024, and both items will be available in the Croatian Emigrant Press repository.

Awanui

Te Ahu Museum

Kaitaia Dalmatian Club

In the Dalmatian Cultural Society in Auckland on November 16, 2023, the exhibition They Wrote in Glagolitic Script… was presented. After the lecture on Glagolitic script, the presentation of the book Their faraway home was held. The exhibition and lecture were attended by members of the society, with whom the collaborators on the Croatian Emigrant Press project discussed the possibilities of further research and the digitization of publications, especially the Zora newspaper, copies of which are available in the Society’s archives.

At the University of Auckland, research was conducted in the library on November 15, 2023. Based on the research and meeting with prof Tatjana Buklijaš, more publications related to Croats in New Zealand were found. All these publications will be added to the bibliographies created as part of the Croatian Emigrant Press project. An old printing press from 1863 is on display in the library. The first Croatian newspapers in New Zealand were most likely printed using a similar model.

On November 13, 2023, Ivana Hebrang Grgić and Ana Barbarić visited the Croatian Cultural Society in Auckland and on that occasion discussed the possibilities of cooperation in researching publications of Croatian imigrants. A part of the exhibition They Wrote in Glagolitic Script… created in cooperation with the National and University Library in Zagreb and with the support of the Central State Office for Croats abroad, is on display in the Society, with the aim of promoting the Glagolitic script in the Croatian diaspora.

This was followed by a meeting with the New Zealand author Pip McKay, who is engaged in family history research. Producing so-called family books in New Zealand and  increasingly common practice of publishing such books was discussed. The picture shows a family tree from a family album.

The book Their faraway home: The story of Croats in New Zealand through publications by Ivana Hebrang Grgić and Ana Barbarić was published by the Australian and New Zealand publisher Exisle Publishing and Croatian publisher Naklada Ljevak. The book is updated English edition of the book Ni s kućom ni bez kuće: nakladnička djelatnost Hrvata u Novome Zelandu (Neither with a house, nor witout a house: publishing activity of Croats in New Zealand), published in 2021 and available in the Croatian Emigrant Press Repository. The editor of the book is  Nives Tomašević, Ph.D., and the reviewers of the English edition are Maja Krtalić, Ph.D. (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) and Jasna Novak Milić, Ph.D. (Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia). The book can be purchased in Croatian, Australian and New Zealand bookstores and through the publisher’s website.

U On the 3rd DARIAH-HR International Conference (Digital Humanities & Heritage), on October 27, 2023 in Zagreb, Ivana Hebrang Grgić and Ana Barbarić held a presentation entitled Digital Infrastructure for Cultural Heritage: Bibliographies and Digitization within the Croatian Emigrant Press Project. The presentation presented the infrastructure used in the Croatian Emigrant Press project – Koha open source library software and the Croatian Emigrant Press repository on the Dabar platform (digital academic archives and repositories).

Croatian Emigrant Press Repository (HIT Reposiotry) on the 16th October 2023 is included in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR), international, quality-assured, global database that hosts open access repositories (i.e. repositories that provide free, open acess to academic outputs and resources). Each repository record within OpenDOAR has been reviewed and prcessed by editorial team in order to offer a trusted service for the community.  The service launched in 2005 as the product of a collaborative project between the University of Nottingham and Lund University, funded by OSI, Jisc, SPARC Europe and CURL.