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He aha Ngā Upoko Tukutuku? | What are Māori Subject Headings?

"Māori Subject Headings provide subject access in te reo Māori to materials for and/or about Māori. The thesaurus framework offers a structured path to a Māori world view within library and archival cataloguing and description"  (Taken from : OCLC Māori Subject Headings) 

Subject Headings are standardised terms (hashtags for researchers) that are applied consistently by descriptive metadata experts to allow researchers to search and retrieve all results on a topic.

He aha i mahia ai Ngā Upoko Tukutuku? | Why do we need Māori Subject Headings?

Library of Congress subject headings are routinely added to records, but two studies in the late 1980s demonstrated a need for the addition of Ngā Upoko Tukutuku / Māori Subject Headings.  Researchers were unable to find material within library collections that were either in the Māori language or written from a Māori worldview.

Before Māori Subject Headings were introduced, a resource on the topic of haka was assigned the subject heading Folk dancing, Maori (New Zealand people).  If the term "haka" did not happen to be in the title or description of a record, then researchers might fail to find any results on the topic.  With the introduction of Ngā Upoko Tukutuku / Māori Subject Headings, you can not only search for haka,  but also for broader, narrower and related terms.  Specific types of haka include:

• Haka pōwhiri                                           

• Haka taparahi

• Manawawera

• Peruperu (Haka)

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