National Library of Australia


Picture Queensland - its people and places, past and present

Project participants: State Library of Queensland
Contact officer/s: Fiona Gaske, A/Curator Original Materials -
Email fiona.gaske@slq.qld.gov.au
Phone 07 3840 7895, Fax 07 3842 9126
Project description: Picture Queensland is a database of digital images drawn from the photographic collection of the John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Its main objective is to provide free online public access to Queensland's photographic record.
In creating Picture Queensland, the State Library developed standards and guidelines for digitising images. These documents are available from the Picture Queensland web site so that public libraries and other cultural organisations can decide if they are relevant and of interest to them in creating and managing their own digital collections.
Picture Queensland Outreach is Phase 2 of the Picture Queensland project and it will commence late 2003. The Outreach project involves consultation with interested Queensland public libraries and cultural heritage institutions to pool digitisation experience and skills, and to investigate how best to assist Queensland cultural organisations to digitise local image collections.
URL of site: http://www.pictureqld.slq.qld.gov.au
URL for project information: http://www.pictureqld.slq.qld.gov.au/about_us.html
Content: The service contains thousands of images that depict Queensland life from different locations and time periods - agriculture and industries, football and tennis, sugar cane and beche-de-mer, wool and mining, transport and medicine, politics and racing, families and weddings.
Images are organised into themes for quick browsing or they can be searched by keyword, photographer, town or subject. They are drawn from broad geographical regions - from Charleville to Cape York, Coolangatta to Mt Isa, Longreach to Fraser Island. Visitors to the database can order images for their own use, add comments and help to identify mystery photographs.
Digitisation policy and priorities: http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/pub/policies/
Timetable: Continuing. Project was proposed 01/03/2002 and the web site launched 02/06/2003. Phase 1 of the project is ongoing having been extended until June 2004. Phase 2 – Picture Queensland Outreach – will continue in 2004.
Budget and funding: $300,000
Staff resources: The digitising of photographic resources is managed inhouse by staff from the Image Production Unit and the John Oxley Library's Original Materials Unit.
Technical standards: Materials: Photographs
The State Library of Queensland's Digitisation Standards are available at http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/pub/digital/
Cataloguing and indexing: The State Library of Queensland's Digital Standard 1 - Cataloguing and metadata for digital images is available at http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/pub/digital/sd1_meta.htm
Guidelines for staff who apply the standard are available at http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/pub/digital/guidelines.htm
Comments:

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

Last modified: March 10 2005.