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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 44 | April 2000


Multimedia online

In 2000, the Multimedia Unit has become a permanent unit within the Publications Branch of the National Library of Australia, and its work has continued to appear in ever greater quantity on the Library web site.

Following the production of the widely acclaimed Endeavour CD-ROM, featuring the holograph journal of Captain James Cook, the Unit experienced changes in personnel and a shift in focus from CD-ROM publication to online publication. Beginning with the online exhibition Birds! (http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/birds), designed to support the feature exhibition of early 1999, the Unit began to produce web sites of high quality in terms of design, interactivity and navigability.

Of particular note have been the Unit’s forays into new technologies and e-commerce. The Publications Gifts and Merchandise web site (http://www.nla.gov.au/pub/giftmrch) was one that saw the visual and functional enhancement of a National Library sales site, and has been a starting point for research into online marketing and points of sale.

In November 1999, the online exhibition Follow the Sun: Australian Travel Posters 1930s–1950s (http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/sun) was launched in tandem with the physical exhibition, with content including works from the National Gallery of Australia, the National Archives of Australia and ScreenSound Australia, as well as from the Library’s collections. Some wonderful film footage of travel destinations around Australia, much of it filmed and directed by Frank Hurley, provided the Multimedia Unit with the opportunity to feature film on the National Library’s website for the first time.

More recently, the Unit has been employing new zoom and panning technologies, already tested very successfully in the Library’s Rare Map Digitisation Pilot Project, for the latest National Library exhibition The World Upside Down: Australia 1788–1830 (http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/upsidedown/). This online exhibition, like the physical exhibition that it complements, features many of the period’s most significant documents, paintings, sketches, prints and objects—and all gathered from the collections of the National Library.

The Unit faces an ambitious schedule of online interpretation sites for 2000 and beyond, supporting the activities of the Library's Public Programs Division. This program of work will also see the Unit produce ‘stand-alone’ sites to satisfy visitors to the National Library web site—visitors who range from academics based in Australia to international web surfers with absolutely no knowledge of the National Library’s collections or activities.

Through online collaborative efforts with the Library’s other divisions, cultural institutions and educators, the Multimedia Unit will not only be providing access to the Library’s collections in an intelligent and meaningful way, but will also allow online visitors to experience the Library’s collections and the stories they tell of Australia and its peoples.

| Contents list for this issue of Gateways |

Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: tford@nla.gov.au

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