Digitisation of Traditional Format Library Materials

South Seas Project

Purpose

The South Seas Project (formerly the Endeavour Project) is a collaborative research venture involving the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University; the National Library of Australia; and the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre at the University of Melbourne. The aim of the Project is to produce a model for scholarly publishing using original and secondary sources relating to Cook and South Seas exploration. The web site for the project is .

The National Library's contribution to this project is to create digital images of an agreed selection of printed, pictorial and map collection material relating to James Cook's first Pacific voyage of 1768-1771 and other 18th century voyaging in Australia and the Pacific. It will also host the website on the National Library's server and manage it into the future; and provide technical assistance and advice as required.

Objectives

The National Library's project objectives are to:

  1. Gain understanding of new forms of publishing using digital technology and new ways in which our collections can be used.
  2. Gain experience in linking images to catalogue records, including devising persistent identifiers, and the use of encoded finding aids as required.
  3. Digitise manuscripts, pictures, maps and images from printed works using a digital camera.
  4. Store digital images.

Description of material which has been digitised

Manuscripts:

Print collections (plates only):

Maps:

Stakeholders

NLA staff South Seas Project participants Other
Representatives on South Seas Steering Committee (Pam Gatenby, Warwick Cathro, Tony Boston) Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University Researchers interested in the South Sea voyages of discovery
Digitisation Steering Committee Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, University of Melbourne Institutions with related collections and subject interest
Digitisation Project   Public
Preservation Services    
Imaging Services    
Special Materials Cataloguing    
Pictorial Curator    
Map Curator    

Program of work

Item Responsibility Date completed or time period
Assess proportion of bound works to be digitised Deirdre Kiorgaard in consultation with Preservation Services and Information Services Completed
Preservation assessment Lisa Jeong-Reuss Completed
Treatment Lisa Jeong-Reuss Completed
Digitise with digital camera Imaging Services Completed August 2003
Quality check images   Completed August 2003
Create Finding aids Diana Dack/Deirdre Kiorgaard Completed December 2003

Interfaces

Project owner/Driver Pamela Gatenby / Paul Turnbull (Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, ANU)
Project manager Deirdre Kiorgaard
Constraints May need to trial use of EAD with non-manuscript collections.

Delivery system for images from the book collection is under development during 2003

Project Team

Digitisation Team (Tom Ruthven, Erica Ryan)
Map Collection (Maura O'Connor)
Australian Book Collection (Ros McDonald)
Preservation Services (Colin Webb)
IT coordination (Mark Corbould)
Imaging Services (Andrew Stawowczyk-Long)
Special Materials Cataloguing (Deirdre Kiorgaard)

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