Digitial preservation & access program: a brief tour

Sue Ryan

Newcastle Region Library

Local Studies collection

• Collection size 38,000 (books, periodicals etc)

• Additional collections include:– 25,000 maps and plans– 300,000 photographs– 700+ framed pictures– 400+ posters– bound volumes local newspapers

• Archives– 11,180 books– 2,382 boxes– 1000+ films

Digitisation beginnings

Digitisation of photographs started in 1994 with Hunter Photo Bank.

• These photographs were originally scanned for access, not preservation & therefore there were no master digital images.

• Hunter Photo Bank currently has about 33,000 records available to be viewed. 13,000 of these are available on Picture Australia.

The 1989 Newcastle Earthquake Database. Online documents, photographs, video & audio of the Newcastle Earthquake and the recovery program.Contains 36,400 records.

Digital assets repository

• KE Emu shared with the Newcastle Region Art Gallery & the Newcastle Museum

• Provides storage for any digital objects – images, video, audio, text, documents or pdf

• Can store master copies of digital assets as well as access copies which can be viewed through web page.

• All accession information, rights & other details can be stored with the object

KE Emu catalogue

Emu: results screen

Emu: main entry

Emu: subjects

Emu: multimedia display

Emu: EXIF Data

Emu: image

Wallsend Main Street Heritage Study revisited

Wallsend Main Street Heritage Study revisited

Digitised materials

Examples:

• War Workers Gazette

• Newcastle Morning Herald

Indexes 1944-1984

Proposed improvements to ladies bathing place 1900

Laman Street History Project

J. Ireland Pty Ltd

Jesse Ireland 1835 - 1887

Ireland Archive

J. Ireland Pty Ltd: Bond Store c. 1890

Snowball collection

J. Ireland Pty Ltd: exhibition at Newcastle Show 1902

Snowball collection

J. Ireland Pty Ltd: welcome home to employees

Ireland Archive

J. Ireland Pty Ltd: Gravestone of Jesse Ireland 1887

Snowball collection

J. Ireland Pty Ltd: business records

• Invoice

• Recipe for rhubarb wine

• Seed catalogue

J. Ireland Pty Ltd: personal papers

• Marriage certificate

• Testimonial

• Graphology report

• Obituary

Fitzgerald’s 90-90 Rule

• The first 10% of a project takes 90% of the time & effort.

• The remaining 90% of the project takes the other 90% of the time & effort.

• Managing expectations

• Consequences of inaction – preservation is at the centre

of a digitisation program

Some general comments

Some general comments

• If you wait until all the circumstances are perfect it will never happen.

• Be creative in your solutions

• Sometimes you have to compromise

• Tenacity

Some general comments