Marlborough District Libraries Reference Librarian, Sandra Parker, certainly has many answers.

Over the past four years, alongside her regular duties at Marlborough Library, Sandra has been researching regional resources for the ManyAnswers website.

AnyQuestions/ManyAnswers is a platform funded by the Ministry of Education, managed by the National Library of New Zealand and staffed by librarians around New Zealand.

It is designed to assist school students with researching a variety of topics. Informally known as ‘homework help’, the idea is not to give students the answers, but to show them how to find the information they need from reliable authoritative sources.

Sandra joined a team of reference librarians from across the motu/country in 2020 to develop content for the Regional Resources section of the ManyAnswers website, providing research support for students that aligns with the Aotearoa New Zealand histories curriculum.

Her impressive package of work, focussing on Marlborough | Te Tauihu-o-te-waka, began as New Zealand was coming out of Covid lockdowns, and working in ‘bubbles’. Starting with brainstorming content and ensuring alignment to the curriculum, Sandra began looking at many websites, ebooks, databases and physical books to verify content and work out which section the information related to.

“At one point I had about 100 books on hold to methodically work my way through. I turned up at work that afternoon to find the ‘morning bubble’ had found them all and stacked them on my desk!” Sandra said.

Over the ensuing years, a shortlist of places, events and people was developed and finessed before the website was developed, edited and finally published in May this year.

Through her work, Sandra was reminded of the many events and places which had had name changes over the years, creating the potential to limit one’s research efforts.

“My advice when researching historical places or events would be to remember that places and events have changed their names over time. If you are looking up something such as The Wairau Affray, you should also try using ‘Wairau Massacre’, ‘Wairau Incident’ and ‘Tuamarina’ as keywords to find relevant material. Likewise, information on the Ōpaoa River will also be found using ‘Opawa River’ as keywords.”

Marlborough | Te Tauihu-o-te-waka has a unique story involving a variety of people, places and events. Users can find the best websites and books to use to explore this history and find out what has happened in Marlborough in the past. https://anyquestions.govt.nz/many-answers/regional-resources/marlborough