National Library of Australia


Looking Back

Project participants: State Library of Queensland
Contact officer/s: Grant Collins (email grant.collins@slq.qld.gov.au) Manager, Collection Preservation, phone 07 3840 7841 or fax 07 3840 2421
Project description: Looking Back is the result of an early pilot project "Digital Research Pilot". The project served to assess and investigate issues inherent in a digitisation project. 250 slide images, mainly depicting Queensland in the 1950's (but including images up to the early 1980s) were digitised. Priorities for the project included the:
  • research value and technical outcomes
  • documentation of the process and its application to the State Library's digital agenda
  • evaluation of the process end-product
  • investigation of access issues via the State Library's web site.
URL of site: http://lookingback.slq.qld.gov.au/
URL for project information: http://lookingback.slq.qld.gov.au/help.htm#what
Content: 250 colour slides and 6 colour transparencies depicting life in Queensland from the 1950s to the 1980s were selected for digitisation.
Digitisation policy and priorities: http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/file/6286/digitisation.doc
Timetable: Completed 2000
Budget and funding: The Amy Jenkins Bequest was used as a funding source for the important step of obtaining clearances from copyright owners to use the images on the Internet. Otherwise, no direct funding was provided. The project was completed by various State Library of Queensland staff members.
Staff resources: All image selection, digitisation, database construction, indexing and web design was completed in-house by State Library of Queensland staff.
Technical standards: Photographs. Three versions of each image were created and saved:
  • Version 1: an archive TIFF version at a resolution of 300 ppi, image size of 10x6 cm, approximate file size of 2.7MB.
  • Version 2: an access JPEG version at a resolution of 150 ppi, image size of 6x4 cm, approximate file size of about 37KB.
  • Version 3: a small JPEG thumbnail version at a low quality resolution of 72 ppi, image size of 4x2 cm, compressed to 7KB.
Cataloguing and indexing: No metadata or metadata schema was used with this project - indexing of digitised images was kept at a minimum level.
Comments: Please contact the nominated State Library officer for a copy of the full report.

Project managers wishing to update the details of their Australian digitisation projects, should email the changes to alg@nla.gov.au.

Last modified: March 11 2005.