Most years, the Friends’ Committee aims to undertake a project that will benefit the Hocken Collections directly or indirectly.
Since 2016 the major focus has been on funding and supporting the Friends of the Hocken Collections Award. So far this has resulted in the publication of To The Mountains: A Collection of New Zealand Alpine Writing, and the current writing of Mirrors on the Land about New Zealand’s lakes, by Jonathan West.
Up until 2016 projects that were funded included:
- Purchase of a special microfilm reader-printer
- Microfilming records of the Otago Provincial Council and Southland Provincial Council
- Microfilming the files of the Mataura Ensign
- Publication of A Journal of Their Own: An Index to “Art in New Zealand,” 1928-1946
- Microfilming and digitisation of the Cromwell Argus, from its inception to 1948 (working with Central Lakes Trust, under the National Library’s collaborative digitisation programme)
- Digitisation of the Otago Daily Times headline indexes for the period 1946-1980
- Publication of
- Gaining a foothold : historical records of Otago’s eastern coast, 1770-1839 / Ian Church, general editor. (2008)
- Haven at St Leonards : the story of University Lodge, its background and occupants, by Ian Church (2011) – available from the Hocken Online Shop
- Aspiring to Art, by Gary Blackman (2014)