Rare materials to be digitised and made accessible to all

The ANU Library Digitisation Team have released their Digitisation Plan for 2022-2023. This plan provides a brief summary of the projects they will be undertaking over the next two years.

What are they doing?

The team will be digitising archives and rare materials, to make them available online through the ANU Open Research Repository.

Why is digitisation important?

Digitisation allows better access to these valuable resources.

Many of these items are difficult to access in their current form – we may not have the technology to view films or slides; fragile items cannot be repeatedly handled; and for researchers outside of Canberra, it can be challenging to get to campus to view materials.

By digitising these items, we can make them available online for a much larger audience, as well as produce preservation copies before vulnerable items degrade even further.

Who will benefit from digitisation?

We all benefit when information is more accessible!

The materials will be of value to a broad range of researchers, historians, academics, students, as well as the general public.

What is being digitised?

There are some fascinating collections being digitised, including:

• 10,000 photographs, negatives and slides relating to the Waterside Workers’ Federation and Seamen’s Union of Australia, documenting 150 years of labour and activism on Australia’s waterfront
• photographs of Adelaide Steamship Company ships operating in Australian coastal waters from 1875 to the 1970s
• audio-visual material compiled by Dr Ian Maddocks and Diana Maddocks during their time in Papua New Guinea, including songs, oral histories, and recitations of traditional beliefs
• architectural drawings and photographs of mid-century Australian designs produced by members of the ANU Design Unit including Fred Ward and Derek Wrigley
• 18,000 photographs, 175 maps and plans, and staff records relating to the operations of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR) in Australia and the Pacific
• colour slides produced by geographer Professor Diana Howlett during her fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, Cook Islands and Solomon Islands
• photographs from the Dunlop Rubber Company of Australia featuring sporting and motor industry products
• architectural maps and plans relating to Lake George Mines Pty Ltd
• slides relating to the Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories
• rare surviving 1828-29 ledger from Squire’s Brewery, established by First Fleet convict James Squire
• audio cassette recordings of Canberra School of Art seminars by significant artists and art historians
• rare pamphlets, photographs and ephemera about radical Australian and international politics
• theses relating to the research carried out by the North Australia Research Unit (NARU)
• 3,300 Asia Pacific maps from Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Fiji
• and much more!

Find out more about upcoming digitisation projects in the SIS Digitisation Plan 2022-23, or by subscribing to the Digitisation Update.