National Library of Australia


Picture Queensland Outreach

Project participants: State Library of Queensland
Atherton Shire Library

Banana Shire Library & Information Service

Barcaldine Shire Library

Cooloola Library

Chinchilla Public Library

Hinchinbrook Shire Libraries
Contact officer/s: Fiona Gaske, Manager Original Materials, Heritage Collections -
Email fiona.gaske@slq.qld.gov.au
Phone 07 3840 7894, Fax 07 3842 9126
Project description: Picture Queensland Outreach is Phase 2 of the Picture Queensland project.
The six Queensland public libraries listed above, are working with the State Library of Queensland to pool digitisation experience and skills, and to investigate how best to assist Queensland cultural organisations to digitise local image collections. Outreach has three goals:

1. Connectivity/Access: to provide a central web service where clients can search and access statewide image resources.
2. Content: to increase the number of unique Queensland digital images to form a more complete pictorial record of the State.
3. Competencies: to encourage and empower staff from Queensland local public libraries and other cultural institutions to digitise their local images and make them available online.
As part of the Outreach project, the State Library developed a 2-day digitisation workshop, Unlocking Queensland’s picture heritage. All pilot site participants attended the workshop. They agreed to index and scan a minimum of 100 local images for inclusion in Picture Queensland. The State Library’s Picture Queensland team added an additional 100 images of each region drawn from the John Oxley Library’s photographic collection. By March 2005, three of the pilot sites – Chinchilla, Hinchinbrook and Barcaldine - had launched their project and the other pilot sites will launch by 5 May 2005.
URL of site: http://www.pictureqld.slq.qld.gov.au
URL for project information: http://www.pictureqld.slq.qld.gov.au/pqo.html
Content: Each Outreach pilot site selected their local images based on significance to their community and collection strengths. Pilot sites discussed their selections with John Oxley Library (JOL) staff and, where possible, JOL’s selections either supported the local theme, or deliberately avoided it. For example, in consultation with Chinchilla Library, JOL avoided selecting images of prickly pear or cactoblastis cactorum because Chinchilla Library held many of these images; Hinchinbrook Library selected from a major donation on the history of the 31st Kennedy Regiment; Barcaldine Library called on local people to donate images, liaised with the local history group and photographed some of the local landmarks. When completed the Picture Queensland Outreach project will increase the depth and breadth of Queensland’s pictorial record, providing 1,200 additional images for access by Queenslanders and the wider internet community.
Digitisation policy and priorities: http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/file/6286/digitisation.doc
Timetable: Continuing project: proposed 01/10/2003. Expressions of interest finalised 20/02/2004; training finalised 30/09/2004; Chinchilla Library launched 20/09/2004; Hinchinbrook launched 16 Februrary 2005; Barcaldine launched 16 March 2005. Project completion anticipated mid 2005.
Budget and funding: $200,000
Staff resources: The digitising tasks – indexing and scanning – were undertaken by each pilot site. The State Library’s contributions were indexed and scanned in-house.
Technical standards: Materials: Photographs
The Picture Queensland Outreach standards are available at http://www.pictureqld.slq.qld.gov.au/documents/
Cataloguing and indexing: Cataloguing/indexing standards and the Dublin Core metadata elements used in Picture Queensland Outreach are described in the standards available http://www.pictureqld.slq.qld.gov.au/documents/ as are the guidelines that assist pilot sites to apply these standards. Five of the six pilot sites are using web forms created by the State Library to index their records. These libraries do not have a web opac. The sixth pilot site – Cooloola Library – is indexing directly into their local catalogue.
Comments: An interim report on the Picture Queensland Outreach project will be available on the Picture Queensland website April 2005. The report will detail lessons learned and difficulties encountered.

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.