National Library creates Facebook time capsule to document New Zealand's history

Thursday, 5 September 2019

In 100 years' time, your Facebook profile could play a vital part in shaping New Zealand's history.

The National Library of New Zealand was calling for Kiwis to donate their Facebook data for inclusion in a digital time capsule available to researchers in the future.

Jessica Moran, the library's digital collection services team leader, said she was 'hoping that future researchers will be able to get a sense of how people communicated and what people were interested in' just by studying the donated data.

Facebook was now the modern day memory box and provided a snapshot of what individuals were interested in and the lives they lived.

In 100 years' time, your Facebook profile could play a vital part in New Zealand's history.

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The Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand's national library, was calling for Kiwis to donate their Facebook data for inclusion in a digital time capsule available to researchers in the future.

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She said the Facebook Archive Project would help various researchers in the future, such as sociologists, photography researchers, and genealogists, to understand what people used the platform for.

The data would be locked away for either 100 years, 25 years, or available to on-site researchers immediately. The accessibility was at the discretion of each individual.

Moran said users and donors were in control and could decide what data they wanted to contribute - images, messages, likes, posts on your wall. The profiles would be secured in the library's national digital heritage archive and wouldn't be publicly available online.

It was hoped the collection - which would be capped at 100 profiles - would be a representation of New Zealand and all of its people.

'We'd love it to be a really diverse cross-section and really be a collection that is representative and shows all the different, beautiful, interesting parts of New Zealand and the people that live there, so future researchers can see that in the collection.'

Thanks to The National Library of New Zealand, the memes and funny videos you share on the social media platform would go down in history.

The project was launched to coincide with the 100 year anniversary of Alexander Turnbull's library being shared with the people of New Zealand.

The library would be accepting profile donations until the end of 2019.