South Seas Project

See also: Digital Preservation | Digitisation

Background

The South Seas Project is a collaborative research venture conceived and undertaken by Paul Turnbull, Professor of History at James Cook University and formerly Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research (CCCR), and Chris Blackall, Senior Research Associate at the CCCR. The project received funding over 3 years (2000 to 2002) from the Australian Research Council through its Strategic Partnership with Industry: Research and Training (SPIRT) program. The CCCR, the National Library, and James Cook University have also provided substantial support.

The outcome of the Project is South Seas, a multi-media, online companion to Captain James Cook’s first Pacific voyage of discovery (1768-1771), which is hosted by the Library. Information about the aims of the Project and the content included in the companion is available at the web site. South Seas will be launched officially at the David Nichol Smith conference at the Library on 20 July 2004.

National Library contribution

The National Library was a partner in the South Seas (formerly Endeavour) Project from its inception in 1999, providing support and assistance in a number of areas.

The Library has been digitising collection material for enhanced access, and collecting online publications and web sites for long-term access, for several years now. Information about the infrastructure and procedures in place to capture, manage and deliver digital content to users is available on the Digitisation page. . The Library’s knowledge and expertise in these areas helped to shape the South Seas Project and to assist with determining approaches that are compatible with our strategies for managing and providing persistent access to digital objects

Some specific ways in which the Library contributed to the Project include:

  • Digitisation of material from the maps, pictures, manuscript and books collections - a full list follows.
  • Development of policy and processes for cataloguing, digitising and delivering single plates and images from publications.
  • Building the first stage of a digital book delivery system to allow images from books to be delivered in sequence and context.
  • Allocation of persistent identifiers to South Seas web pages implemented using the Library’s resolver service.
  • Graphic design of and infrastructure support for the web site.

Benefits to the Library

The Project was appealing to us as it provided the opportunity to work with academic researchers, a key Library user group. The partnership enabled us to:

  • Learn more about the issues associated with the use of the web to publish and disseminate scholarly research based on primary source material.
  • Make our important historical materials relating to the discovery and exploration of the Pacific available in new ways and to new users.
  • Advance our thinking on a number of specific technical issues including for instance use of MrSid compression technology for delivery of detailed non-map items and use of EAD encoded finding aids for providing access to images in books.

Library collections relating to Pacific exploration

The Library’s collections are rich in images and writings relating to the exploration and discovery of the Pacific. Material is included in the maps, pictures, manuscript and books collections. A major source of the materials is the Rex Nan Kivell Collection, the Library’s most important collection relating to the early history of European interaction with the Pacific.

To establish Library holdings besides materials included in South Seas, search the Catalogue  or search separately for pictures in the Pictures Catalogue.

Collection material digitised for South Seas

An objective of South Seas is to use hyper-linking to explore relationships between different sources of historical evidence. Material was selected for inclusion in the companion with this purpose in mind. For instance, the essays about places, people and cultural artefacts included in the Companion part of the web site are linked to corresponding images of rare maps and pictures held in the Gallery.

The following collection items have been digitised for South Seas. Additional works, previously digitised by the Library, are also included in the web site.

Manuscripts:

Print collections (plates only):

Maps:

Future directions

The Library will continue to manage and develop the South Seas web site into the future in collaboration with Professor Paul Turnbull. It will be used as the vehicle for making more of our collections relating to the history Pacific exploration available in digital form and also for publishing relevant scholarly writings and research online. Collaboration with other cultural agencies will also be pursued. Following the launch of the site in July 2004, the Library will establish an editorial board to guide future development of the site.

The Library contact for the project and web site is Pam Gatenby, Assistant Director General, Collection Management Division (pgatenby@nla.gov.au).

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