Diana Giese outlines how digitisation can lead to better access and preservation of the Library’s collections What are some of the key collections in the National Library, the material many users would love to see, even if they can’t travel to Canberra? This was one question posed by those in charge of various collection areas, such as Pictures, Maps, Manuscripts and Music, when deciding on candidates for a major digitisation project on which the Library has embarked. Digitisation, reproducing items with a scanner or digital camera, then offering electronic access, is well under way. The material chosen gives glimpses into many of the Library’s most treasured collections.
The pictures selected range widely: from images of eighteenth and nineteenth-century voyages of exploration, to life in World War II prisoner of war camps. They include cartoons, portrait postcards, Norman Lindsay drawings for recruiting posters, and 10 000 images taken by photographer Frank Hurley in Antarctica, Papua New Guinea and the Middle East. Sir Joseph Banks’ letters and the papers of Sir Edmund Barton, Australia’s first Prime Minister, will be the first items to be copied from the Manuscript Collection. A substantial part of the sheet music collection held by the Library, published before 1930 and involving an Australian composer, librettist or arranger, is being digitised—3500 pieces, of which over half has already been completed. Maps to be copied are those of the Rex Nan Kivell Collection, showing Australia, the Pacific and the world. (An overview of material can be seen at: www.nla.gov.au/digital/program.html) Up until now, the Library has been digitising 6000 images a year. Now a ‘Digitisation Policy 2000–2004’ has been drawn up, its aim being to substantially increase that number. ‘Digitisation goes to the heart of what libraries are for,’ says Tom Ruthven, Director, Interlending Services and Digitisation Project, who is overseeing the initiative. ‘Their job is to collect material, preserve it and provide the best possible access. Our aim in this project is as much volume and diversity as possible.’
Selection criteria specify that items need to be of key historical or intellectual content; that they should include popular collections as well as little-known items that deserve more attention; that they encompass material otherwise hard to access, because of conservation or security considerations; and that they extend to new acquisitions. Other considerations include decreasing the need to provide access to, and the handling of, original material, so that time is saved and the original lasts longer. Making material easier to use is also important; some items are simpler to navigate in digital form. Further criteria are that ‘projects have the potential to attract funding or to generate income through marketing’, and that material selected may attract or promote further digitisation, or complement existing digital collections. The project also aims to extend copying skills to staff from particular areas of the Library. Most of the material in the current project is under A3 size, and can be easily reproduced with a scanner, but larger maps require more specialised treatment. They are transported on special trolleys to the darkroom where the digital camera is set up. Some material requires its own strategies. Canvas steamboat navigation maps for the River Murray, for instance, are stored as scrolls on which handwritten information on the position of shoals and local farms has been added. These maps are particularly interesting for researchers comparing the old Murray with the degraded river of today. For digitisation, they were unpicked, photographed, then stitched back together—a laborious process. To make sure the original item, which may be rare and fragile, is not damaged, a staff member with a background in Preservation assesses each item or collection to forecast any problems, and is present during the digitisation process. These experts also write handling guidelines and organise any necessary repair work. Each evening in the darkroom, the material is either stored or covered in plastic, in case there is a fire and the water sprinkler system automatically comes on. For reproduction of sheet music, a box has been built around the edge of the scanner to support the overhanging page, so that it does not crease. Sheet music from the nineteenth century is delicate, and subject to bleeding. Notes on one side of the paper often come through on the other. The challenge is to be both true to the original and also deliver a clear copy.
‘Damage to an original is my worst nightmare,’ says Tom Ruthven. ‘Even in ordinary day-to-day Library business, if you’ve only got one copy of an item, such as Captain Cook’s Journal, we rarely let it out of the building. Digitising it, on the other hand, means you can use it anywhere in the world.’ An example of the value of digitisation is shown in the case of the Hurley photographic negatives, which are nitrate-based and must be kept in a cold store. When they are removed, they must be placed in another room for 24 hours to warm up before anyone can look at them. There is also a reaction between the nitrate and air at room temperature, leading to deterioration. Before they are re-stored, the process must be repeated, with cooling down over another 24 hours. Digital access will mean minimising the need to refer to the originals: ‘Taking the originals out and putting them back once to digitise means they will last much longer,’ says Ruthven. In 2051, images reproduced in 2001 will be compared with the originals. With the nitrate negatives, the rate of deterioration will be obvious. All involved with digitisation emphasise, however, that the original will always remain in the collections: the precious physical object is still paramount. Digital images have the advantage over other forms of copying because they are near-perfect reproductions of originals, as is each subsequent version. ‘Up until now, we’ve been taking transparencies of items or microfilming or doing both,’ says Ruthven. These processes are likely to be completely replaced by digitisation. But this will take time and may not be convenient for all users. Microfilm, for instance, has the advantage that, although the master copy is relatively expensive to create, its duplication is extremely cheap. So public libraries around the world can get complete, cost-effective runs of each other’s newspapers, for instance. Microfilm is also easy to access. It is still quicker and easier for an outback user to take a microfilm roll off a shelf than contend with often slow Internet access. Pictorial material from the digitisation initiative is being put up on the Library’s web site immediately it is copied. Sheet music and maps are currently stored, while new ways of delivering them are considered. Possibilities for books and journals, which can mostly be reproduced on a scanner unless they are tightly bound or very fragile, are also being examined. Five people from the Music technical services area are already on daily one-and-a-half hour shifts, scanning sheet music. The Library would like to extend these skills to staff in other areas. Most of the material being digitised in the current project is free of copyright constraints and available for use in publications. As more material is delivered electronically, however, copyright issues will grow in importance. ‘When we acquired material in the 1930s or 1970s, we obviously didn’t ask if we could digitise it and put it up on our web site for free,’ says Ruthven. Now this is one of the questions asked whenever the Library acquires new items or collections.
At the moment, anyone can click their mouse at their home computer and save a downloaded digitised image from the Library’s collections. Information is provided about the limits of use—only for study or research, unless permission is sought from the copyright owner. Such owners have rights to recognition and reward, says Ruthven. Some donors of manuscripts have also asked whether they can get a digital copy of their work from the Library, on CD-ROM. ‘And as the publishing industry becomes more involved with digital publishing, we’ll have to consider how libraries can provide access to this without undermining their rights.’ What are some of the long-term advantages that digitisation offers? For those who want to publish the Library’s material, a digital image can be sent electronically, rather than as a transparency. Multimedia publications will be easy to produce, as will online versions of current exhibitions, or original online displays. The Library’s Digitisation Committee is currently working on a three to five year plan for future work. They are looking at such issues as research demand, approaching centenary and international years, and collections that cut across a number of disciplines. Other crucial considerations are ease of copying, possible volume and whether or not material has been described and has catalogue records. Digitisation is also likely to take place if the Library is working with another organisation, such as a university, on a particular project or exhibition. The Library is currently working with the Research Library Group in North America on a World Digitisation Project. ‘We could get access to other people’s material directly, and link it to ours, so that our collections are available in one coherent delivery system, like a thousand libraries of Alexandria,’ says Ruthven. ‘Digitisation is a great leap forward for us. If you’re at home with your computer, if your child is doing a school project on Sir Edmund Barton, or if you’re an academic researcher in Townsville, you can now get direct access to a huge amount of information. This is a whole new way of welcoming people into libraries. It also provides great opportunities for us to provide and help navigate information to underpin Australia’s research and knowledge base.’ DIANA GIESE has recorded many interviews for the National Library’s Oral History Collection, pioneers of digital recording and preservation |
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