National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 56 | April 2002


What’s New on PictureAustralia?

PictureAustralia logo
Leafy Sea Dragon by William Bluelow
One of the range of PictureAustralia postcards currently available:
William Buelow Gould (1801–1853)
Leafy Sea Dragon
Watercolour on paper; 19.0 x 23.0 cm
Plate 11 Gould’s sketchbooks of fishes
Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts
State Library of Tasmania

The annual PictureAustralia Participants Meeting was held in February this year. Representatives from the 13 agencies then contributing images to the PictureAustralia service met to discuss the year that was and the year to come. It was clear that there was much to reflect on. By the end of 2001 the number of agencies contributing images to the service had doubled and the number of images available for searching had risen to over half a million. The service had become a standard image finding tool for many users, both in Australia and overseas. The value to the participating agencies and to users in making the images of our cultural heritage accessible to all may be shown in the sentiment expressed in an email to the PictureAustralia mailbox:

Thank you for providing such a valuable web site. Searching is easy, fast and results comprehensive. Wonderful for those of us tracing our ancestry whose children could only imagine Australia as it was for their grandparents, great grandparents etc. A terrific service to Australians.

Users enthusiastically supported the concept of Trails. Trails draw together highlights from the collections on a range of topics. A selection of new image trails was added to the service in response to user requests. Try the Inspirational Australian Women trail, created for Women’s History Month or follow the path of Burke and Wills across Australia in a trail created to coincide with the National Library’s current exhibition Burke & Wills: From Melbourne to Myth. Check out these and other trails at www.pictureaustralia.org/trails.html.

The participants agreed that a new evolution of the PictureAustralia interface was timely after 18 months online, and in light of a detailed external evaluation of the service and much valued feedback by a broad range of users. The new-look version of PictureAustralia should be online in April, offering additional information and simpler searching. Comments are welcome!

Following the Participants Meeting, amid much excitement, three new agencies became members. The National Gallery of Australia joined PictureAustralia with around 15 000 images of Australian art, making a significant contribution to the scope of the service. The ACT Library and Information Service and the Northern Territory Library and Information Service also joined, adding substantially to the geographic coverage of the service. The ACT Library and Information Service contributed a collection of around 600 fascinating photographs of the nation’s capital in the 1950s and will continue to add images over time. The Northern Territory Library and Information Service contributed around
28 000 images of the Territory including records of Cyclone Tracy and other major Top End events. You can read about the agencies contributing to PictureAustralia at www.pictureaustralia.org/providers.html and this group will, no doubt, continue to expand.

A new set of PictureAustralia postcards are on their way around Australia and New Zealand and should be available free on Avant Card stands in galleries, cafes, theatres, community centres and so on. The cards, along with PictureAustralia posters, bookmarks and stickers are on their way out to all historical societies, schools and public libraries in Australia. If you miss out, contact us for the full set at , phone (02) 6262 1641 or at PictureAustralia Administration, National Library of Australia, Parkes Place, Canberra ACT 2600.
—Danielle Freeman

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