Research materials digitisation

Over 29,000 images from a variety of sources including:

UNE Heritage Centre has been digitising research material since 2004. This has been based on the desire to protect original documentary material or to provide access to researchers unable to visit the Centre. While many items have only had a few pages copied for specific research or a fee for service basis, however some of the major tasks undertaken include

Aerial Photos Ellis Thorpe Collection 1943 -1970 459 files 2.21GB UNE department support
Belfield Weather records 1878 - 1908 1272 files 1.42GB volunteer assistance
A0002 OGILVIE PAPERS, GLEN INNES. 1891 – 1936 172 files 37.2 MB
A0103 OLLERA STATION GUYRA 1838 -1968 307 files 245 MB
A0109 WYNDHAM PAPERS – DINTON – DALWOOD 1827 – 1888
1435 files 235 MB volunteer assistance
A0136 BRINDLEY PARK, MERRIWA: 1877 - 1897 661 files 324 MB fee for service
A0147 WALLABADAH RECORDS 1869 - 1944 188 files 114 MB
A0238 BANANA GROWERS' FEDERATION 1918 - 2001 137 files 25 MB
A0313 BOUGHTON, C.F. PAPERS 1949 - 1954 262 files 245 MB fee for service
A0361 ANGLEDOOL 1883 – 1942 260 files 248 MB
A0654 SAUMAREZ DIARIES 1883 – 1895 1384 files 316 MB volunteer assistance
A1473 WHITE FAMILY ALBUMS c. 1890 – c.1930 319 files 383 MB archivist priority
University of Queensland

1. Fragile materials e.g. Queensland Statistics

Digitisation of hard copy Library collections are primarily undertaken through internal resources but external funds are sought for specific projects egg Text Queensland

Just over 1,600 plant specimens collected from local regions for more than 50 years – basic collection data, dates and photos. The records have been made available in USC’s institutional repository, COAST Research Database.

The majority of our work has been done in the area of Australian literary, historical and natural science primary source material. These digital collections can be found at http://sydney.edu.au/library/digital/ , the link featured on the Library homepage as part of the Library’s Publishing and Partnerships initiatives - http://sydney.edu.au/library/

Digital collections
Many of these collections are text collections of primary source literary or historical works – XML based and marked up using TEI5 (Text Encoding Initiative 5) guidelines to be used as searchable corpora. Most have been funded as part of ARC LIEF, Linkage or Discovery grants. These collections (or parts thereof) have been subsequently re-used in different contexts for individual research projects (Furphy project), as part of semantic corpora (such Dictionary of Sydney, Aust e-Lit etc), as part of other scholarly editing projects (forthcoming White and Harpur projects), or for re-publishing through Sydney University Press (Classic Australian Works)

Common to many of these collections is the provision of a standard functional presentation interface which allows searching and browsing as well as some design features. Our current preference is XTF (eXtensible Text Framework) developed by California Digital Library which provides for consistent technical management across most collections

These text collections include:
• Australian Digital Collections - http://adc.library.usyd.edu.au – corpora of eight collections that can be searched as one or separately. These were previously part of the SETIS (Sydney Electronic Text and Image Service) collections. These collections were developed in partnership through several projects, mostly ARC funded including AustLit, and continue to grow.
• Australian Poetry Library - http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/ - over 42,000 poems digitised and marked up as part of an ARC Linkage between Sydney and CAL. Includes some audio and video. (Customised anthologies can be compiled on-line and delivered electronically or through print-on-demand via Sydney University Press)

Current text / scholarly editing /manuscript projects include:

Images, data or grey literature collections. These include:

Rare books - http://sydney.edu.au/library/libraries/rare/7digmat.html (internal funding)

Journal back-set digitisation
Several projects have been completed or are in progress to digitise back-sets of journals – to be delivered through the Library’s Open Journal System platform - http://escholarship.usyd.edu.au/journals/ (internal and external funding)

University of Tasmania

UTAS Library has a rare and special collections section and over 2000 items from this archive has been digitised by the Library. These include letters, photographs, diaries, paintings and books. Material has also been digitised under Part VB of the Copyright Act for Educational Purposes and for print disabled persons (transcriptions services). A proportion of funds are claimed back via annual Federal High Support Funding for transcription services digitisation activities.

The major project has been the complete set of the Westerly literary magazine from 1956. This was funded by a grant from CAL (Copyright Agency Limited).

The University Library is responsible for the Whitlam Prime Ministerial Library and e-collection. As permitted by law, any materials related to the Whitlam Government, the Whitlam family, general Labor party history as it relates to Mr Whitlam are digitised and made available via the website http://egwpmc.uws.edu.au/ Over the past 3 years the following material has been digitised:

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Victoria University