National Library of Australia


Australian digitisation project

Project participants: AIATSIS Library Digitisation Program 2005-08
Contact officer/s: Lauren Hewitt, Digitisation Manager (email
Lauren.Hewitt@aiatsis.gov.au , phone 02 6246 1178)
Project description: The aim of the project is to make available the following materials / projects
  • Legislation that enabled the forced removal of Indigenous people
  • Protectors’ Reports from all States
  • Nineteenth Century Overseas Journal Articles on Indigenous topics
  • Mission Journals – Our Aim and Australian Evangel
  • Curr Language wordlists and vocabularies
  • R.H. Mathews database and papers – Online exhibition
  • Inquiries and Royal Commissions into Aboriginal Affairs

A specially designed web sites will be created. CD-ROM’s will be produced and distributed selectively to target audiences.

URL of site: http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/library/online_exhibitions/library_digitisation
URL for project information: http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/library/online_exhibitions/library_digitisation
Content:  
Digitisation policy and priorities:  
Timetable: Continuing project 2005-2008
Budget and funding: 3 year budget funding for 2005-08 from the Dept. of Education, Science and Training.

The Library component is $2.66million for three years covering staff, equipment, conservation, cataloguing, administration etc.

AIATSIS also received funds for this three year period, for its Audiovisual Program of $10.3 million.
Staff resources: In-house
Technical standards: Master files are captured at 300-600dpi as 24 bit RGB colour or 8 bit greyscale tiff images. Derivative images for access are dependant on the access requirements. Access files include JPEG images at 150dpi for web, and JPEG thumbnails at 72dpi, PDF files for web access and link to MURA. Currently, master and access files are archived to CD's and access files are also stored on the server for internet access. Future archiving will be to the Digital Repository (Digitool)

Image capture is possible through IBM PC's, Bookeye Colour overhead System for books, Microtek 9600 XL A3 flatbed scanners, Plustek OpticBook 3600 A4 book scanner and a Fujitsu fi4920c A4 document scanner. Image capture software is Adobe Photoshop CS. Access files are created using Adobe Acrobat Capture with full OCR capability.
Cataloguing and indexing: Cataloguing is done through the Library's cataloguing system (Sirsi Unicorn) digital objects (PDF documents) linked to MURA through MARC 856 field. Descriptive metadata is embedded in TIFF files during the creation of the Master file. Technical metadata will be embedded to master and access files when archiving to the Digital Asset Management System (Digitool) using XML. Files are archived with Persistent Identifiers based on the Library catalogue system.
Comments:  

Project managers wishing to update the details of their Australian digitisation projects, should send the changes to ALG Administration.

Last modified: October 20 2009.