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Hocken librarian Sharon Dell is ''absolutely thrilled'' the library's Church Missionary Society archives have been honoured by Unesco recognition.
The 19th-century records, as well as the country's first book and oral history recordings, have been listed on the Unesco Memory of the World New Zealand register of documentary heritage.
Ms Dell said the Church Missionary Society archives were one of the Hocken Library's foundation collections.
The documents had been acquired by library founder Dr Thomas Hocken himself and it was ''a mark of his persuasive personality that the Church Missionary Society allowed him to bring them back to New Zealand'', she said.
The Unesco recognition highlighted the depth of the Hocken collections and boosted awareness of the national significance of the Hocken holdings.
Dr Hocken had not been ''collecting for just Dunedin and Otago'', she said.
The archive charted the establishment of the Church Missionary Society mission in New Zealand along with the establishment of the first settlements and mission stations.
At its core were the letters and journals of Samuel Marsden, but it also included the letters and journals of many other missionary settlers in New Zealand and their correspondence with the society.
The archive was ''fundamental to understanding New Zealand history'' because this was the ''first deliberate European settlement and the first sustained interaction between Maori and Pakeha''.
''An exhibition at the Hocken Library, Whakapono: faith and foundations,'' celebrates the bicentenary of Samuel Marsden's first sermon in the Bay of Islands on Christmas Day 1814, and runs until February 7 next year.
The university library has created an online archive, representing about a third of the Church Missionary Society collection.
• Also recognised this week, and included on the Unesco register of documentary heritage, are the New Zealand Oral History Collection 1946-1948, now cared for by Nga Taonga Sound and Vision, New Zealand's national audiovisual archive; and New Zealand's first book, A Korao no New Zealand, the latter having been part of the Auckland Museum's collections since 1894.