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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 54| December 2001


Edmund Barton Digitisation Project—From Manuscripts to Mouse Clicks

Australia’s first prime minister? Thanks to a recent television advertising campaign, most Australians are now familiar with Sir Edmund Barton. With the use of digital technology, they can now view the personal papers of this important Australian statesman.

The Barton Papers (MS 51) are the first comprehensive archive of personal papers to be digitised by the National Library. The papers comprise 1.12 shelf metres of material and include correspondence, diaries, personal documents, speeches, articles, newspaper cuttings, programs, menus, photographs, 1printed material and several objects, including a Royal Doulton plate, a gold medallion and a ceramic vase.

Cartoon of Barton

The part of the original collection most heavily used by researchers to date is series 6. This series contains papers relating to the Federation Campaign, including drafts of the Constitution annotated by Barton. The collection also includes material relating to Barton’s business and family affairs and his position as a Justice of the High Court. Barton’s correspondence (series 1) also attracts considerable research attention and includes letters by Alfred Deakin, Sir John Forrest, Lord Hopetoun, Joseph Chamberlain, Sir Samuel Griffith, Sir William Lyne, Sir Henry Parkes and Lord Tennyson.

The Barton family donated the Papers to the National Library in six instalments between 1929 and 1996. Some family papers and papers relating to New South Wales politics from the 1929–55 consignments were separated and sent to the Mitchell Library in Sydney (ML MSS 249). A guide to the papers was created in 1968 when the material was transferred to the present National Library building. This now upgraded finding aid provides the structure of the site, with hypertext links from the item numbers to the digital objects. The finding aid itself can also be searched, and a name index has been provided to enhance access to Barton’s extensive correspondence.

For those interested in the more technical aspects of the digitisation, there is an article in this issue of Gateways and also a link from the Barton home page to information on the project, including the scanning hardware, metadata and the use of persistent identifiers to cite and manage the digital collection over time www.nla.gov.au/ms/findaids/ms51/project.html.

Comments on any part of the Barton site are welcomed and can be sent to manuscripts@nla.gov.au.
—Paula Waring

Cartoon of Barton: nla.gov.au/nla.ms-ms51-8-1037-s2-v/

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

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