National Library of Australia - Gateways>

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 49| February 2001


From boats to bunyips

On the evening of 28 November 2000, members of the National Library’s Multimedia Unit travelled to Sydney to attend the Australian Financial Review’s Australian Internet Awards Presentation night. The George Raper Collection, a site designed and developed by the Multimedia Unit was one of three finalists in the Best Arts Site category. To have been judged so highly by industry leaders, against strong competition, was extremely rewarding and gratifying for a team striving to produce the very best National Library sites.

Following the Unit’s first major effort in the electronic publishing world, the award-winning CD-ROM Endeavour: Captain Cook’s Journal 1768–71, the Multimedia Unit concentrated on producing sites for the Library’s web site, the first of which was the online exhibition Birds! supporting the Library’s feature exhibition at the time. Updates of the Publications sites followed including the introduction of National Library of Australia News online, numerous sites accompanying exhibitions, and the redesign of the intranet ourWEB.

Since publication, The George Raper Collection site has set the standard to which the Multimedia Unit aspires in its design and development work—indeed we hope future sites will exceed this standard.

In October 2000 the Nora Heysen online exhibition began, and has been well received by its online visitors. Featuring excerpts of oral histories from the collection recorded with Nora Heysen (in 1965 and 1994), it was the first Multimedia Unit site to offer educational material for teachers relating directly to Nora Heysen the artist, and works from the exhibition itself.

As our name suggests, the Multimedia Unit has employed the use of new and emerging technologies enabling users to enjoy various forms of media. Follow the Sun: Australian Travel Posters 1930s to 1950s online exhibition saw one of the first uses of film and sound on the National Library web site with the incorporation of a number of excerpts from films directed by Frank Hurley and Lyn Maplestone from the period. Using RealPlayer these films were able to give an added dimension to the context and feelings evoked by the travel posters.

The online exhibition for the recently opened travelling exhibition Belonging is another site which features film and sound, the first in which the Unit collaborated with a number of cultural agencies—something we intend to continue.

The Unit’s most ambitious web project is the online exhibition Bunyips. As the subject matter is so intriguing for both young and old and people in Australia and overseas, the Exhibitions and Multimedia Units wanted Bunyips to be an exceptional site—and one that would attract new audiences. This site incorporates varying animated incarnations of the folkloric creature of Indigenous belief to best convey the stories, reported sightings, evidence, and also reinvention of the bunyip. Bunyips web site comprises three sites in fact, for differing computer capabilities—a high, a medium and a low-end version. The high and medium-end versions are Flash sites, incorporating vector graphics appearing as movement (like film), and the low-end version has been developed in HTML. A CD-ROM version (particularly graphic intense) will be sent to venues that will be hosting the travelling panel exhibition and run on the two travelling iMAC computers.

Future electronic publishing projects include web sites originating from the work of the Multimedia Unit, as well as projects to support existing Library Public Programs activities. The first of these will be The Tommy McRae Sketchbook (late 2001) and this will display the 19th-century Indigenous artist’s riveting art work digitised with MrSID zoom capabilities, and commentaries on subject matter and style.

Although we were not able to enjoy the spoils of victory last November (the honour duly being accorded to our colleagues the PictureAustralia creators) we do hope to attend the AFR Awards again, to show off our work, and the National Library’s brilliant collections.

Some of the online publications and exhibitions can be found at the following sites:

The George Raper Collection: www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/georgeraper/
National Library of Australia News: www.nla.gov.au/pub/nlanews
Nora Heysen: www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/noraheysen
Follow the Sun: Australian Travel Posters 1930s to 1950s: www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/sun/
Bunyips: www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/bunyips/
Celebrating 100 years: www.nla.gov.au/anniversary/

—Nicki Mackay-Sim

| Contents list for this issue of Gateways |

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

Gateways logo