Luna Park… It’s still “just for fun!” But can you date this photograph?
We have many other undated photographs in Photo Investigator and on our Flickr account. If you know the dates or any other interesting facts about these images please let us know.
Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend a morning tea at Newcastle Council Chambers at which a full set of Admission registers from Newcastle Girls High School and 2 additional Admission registers from Newcastle Boys High School were handed over to State Records NSW. They will be be stored at the Regional Repository at Newcastle Region Library where they will be arranged and described and made accessible to the wider community.
Newcastle Boys High School Admission registers
Admission registers in particular are a great source of social history with their detailed information about students and their families. This is a wonderful example of people who valued the records and what they represented saving them from destruction and ensuring their long term preservation by returning them to public custody. Big thanks are due to the Newcastle Boys High School Old Boys Association and the Newcastle Girls High School Ex-Students Association, and in particular to Bill Shute and Robyn Gordon who guided the return of the records. In fact the Old Boys Association went one step further and provided digitised copies of all known Admission registers for both institutions!
Digitised Copies of the Admission registers
In both cases it appears that the records would not have survived without the swift intervention of concerned individuals. Their path back to public custody was a long one and the records were cared for privately for many years. Local Studies Librarian, Sue Ryan, and her team at Newcastle Region Library were instrumental in the return of these records. Without the relationship that they developed with the Ex-Students Associations and their willingness to meet and address their concerns the return of these records may not have been possible. The end result is a win for all.
How wonderful it was to meet Archives Outside readers in person at our Open Day last Friday! I got a few autographs on my copy of the Moments in Time book which I’m very chuffed about.
It was a huge day, final visitor figures haven’t yet been calculated but the estimate is that 300+ people trooped through our gates to see what we do, usually behind closed doors.
A big thankyou to all our guest speakers who really made the day special. Fiona and I enjoyed presenting our session on dating old photos and kudos to Bill Oates and Mick Reed who demonstrated the dating photos using shadows technique.
The day’s program was massive with tours heading off every half hour; a full day of various talks and seminars; conservation working bees; digitisation workshops, and; conservation clinics where our conservators advised people on how best to keep their family records. There was also a couple of family history stalls, a prize draw, some accordion playing and a sausage sizzle.
Tours ran every half an hour. Archivist Janette Pelosi was one of the tour guides. Photo by Alan Ventress
Tour groups stopped by conservation to see the work being done in preserving the State's heritage. Photo by Fiona Sullivan
Talks were filled to capacity. This is the session by Richard Lehane. Photo by Alan Ventress
One of the Conservation Clinics. People were able to bring in some of their own family records and received face-to-face advice from our conservators on the best way to preserve them. Photo by Paul Elliott
There was the opportunity to join a conservation working bee and have hands-on experience working with archives. Photo by Fiona Sullivan
In Living Memory touring exhibition. Photo by Alan Ventress
The digitisation workshops run by our photographer Tara Majoor were very popular. Photo by Alan Ventress
The Board Room housed treasures from the collection. Here is archivist Gail Davis, in period costume. Photo by Alan Ventress
The Lions Club put on a terrific sausage sizzle. Photo by Fiona Sullivan
Some entertainment over lunch from archivist and accordion player Fabian LoSchiavo. . Photo by Fiona Sullivan
A couple of family history organisations set up stalls. Photo by Alan Ventress
A good day had by all. Photo by Alan Ventress
Thursday 27 October is a special day for many archivists, it’s UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. This year’s theme, ‘Save and savour your Audiovisual Hertiage – Now!’ will be celebrated by many audiovisual archives around the world…..
The lay of the land may not have changed a great deal in Crows Nest, but the streetscape has had a few updates.
Can you date this photograph?
We have many other undated photographs in Photo Investigator and on our Flickr account. If you know the dates or any other interesting facts about these images please let us know.
Over at our brother blog Opening the Catalogue: State Records NSW’s Open Data Project our colleague Richard Lehane is asking for your help.
State Records NSW is now inviting our regular users to trial http://api.records.nsw.gov.au as a new search tool for accessing the State Archives collection.
If you have tried this new search tool, and have feedback to give, we would love to hear it. We are actively developing the tool and would like to make it as useful and as intuitive as possible. So please post any feedback you have as comments to this blog post
LODLAM stands for Linked Open Data in Libraries, Archives and Museums.
This is a very exciting, innovative area. If you do a Google search on “LODLAM” you bring up a lot of hits, however, sitting right at the top of the list is lod-lam.net. I’ve embedded an Introductory talk on LODLAM by Jon Voss from that site which is a great place to start the LODLAM journey. If you’d like to learn more then I’d highly recommend exploring the websites resources further; they include talks, slideshows, reading lists and information on upcoming events. For those of us in the Southern Hemisphere it’s also worth noting the LODLAM-NZ is coming up in Wellington on 1 December 2011 (Bookings Open).
On to the talk (and accompanying slideshow)….
The Smithsonian Institution hosted a day of LODLAM on September 16, 2011, including the presentation, An Introduction to Linked Open Data in Libraries, Archives & Museums. The talk was webcast live and archived thanks to the generous support of the Smithsonian CTO Series. I’d also like to thank Effie Kapsalis for her amazing organizing efforts around the events, the many staff at the Smithsonian who helped make this a reality, and a great group of participants.
A guest post from the friendly folks at Historypin!
Blue metal tram at Post Office Corner, pinned by Kiama Library, NSW
Historypin is a public history collaboration working with individuals and communities, in partnership with Google and over 100 institutions around the world, to share their collections and build community around local history.
A user-generated site, anyone can contribute their photos and stories to Historypin, which is searchable by place and date. Users can geo-tag and date their content by pinning it to the Historypin map, overlaying it on Google Street View where available.
Photos, video and audio recordings can be added, enriched by stories and memories from users and added to Collections or strung into Tours.
Augmented reality on the iPhone app
All content added to the Historypin map appears on the free Historypin app for iPhone and Android. The app uses augmented reality to allow you to explore content in situ overlaid onto existing scenery, take modern replicas of historical photos and upload photos straight from their camera to the Historypin map.
Early next year we will launch a range of new tools for archives which will include the ability to upload large amounts of content at once, embed Historypin tools on your site showing only your content, and have a dedicated Historypin ‘channel’ on the site and app.
We’re also working to incorporate geo-tagging games into the Historypin experience, enabling institutions and users to open their unlocated photos to the public to locate. These crowdsourcing tools will also harness the Historypin community to help improve photo-meta data.
Inter-generational Historypin workshop with Magic Me in East London, UK
Historypin was created by the non-profit We Are What We Do as a way of bringing people together from across generations and cultures to build stronger communities. So at the heart of Historypin are our Local Projects which take Historypin into the communities to work with archives, schools, community groups and residents to dig out and pin their history. Pinning Reading’s History is the first of these, drawing the town together to create a communal history of the area.
If you’re interested in collaborating with us to share your collection on Historypin or learn more about how we are working with communities, get in touch with Rebekkah Abraham, Historypin Content Manager on rebekkah.abraham@wearewhatwedo.org, or follow us on our blog, at http://blog.historypin.com.
An aerial view of Kiama.
It’s grown a quite a bit since then. Can you date this photograph?