The Internet provides the world with a wonderous though inherently transient publishing environment with websites here today but often gone into the ether tomorrow.

PANDORA, Australia’s Web Archive is a growing collection of copies of Australian online publications, established initially by the National Library of Australia in 1996, and now built in collaboration with other cultural collecting organisations and nine other Australian libraries including the State Library of Queensland.

In a recent posting on the Aus-Archivists listserv Annabel Lloyd, coordinator of the Brisbane City Council Archive, shared the following story:

Just thought I would share a good news story on the value of PANDORA - the National Library’s web archive.
For close to 10 years we managed a small but popular local history website BRISbites which contain a short introductory history to each of the over 300 suburbs of Brisbane mainly aimed at school students but enjoyed by the wider community. It was hosted by a series of external providers - over the years the small providers were taken over by larger companies but the access to the site remained. Earlier this year the latest provider suddenly went bankrupt - our site disappeared overnight and we became creditors and were referred to the receivers, who were not helpful - In trying to recover the data we knew we still had much of the original text but what we faced losing was the numerous updates and corrections that had been made to site over the years. Fortunately, we were archived by Pandora who, in less than 24 hours were able to provide us with a complete version of the site less than 10 months old!
We are now working with our corporate website area to make the information contained on the site accessible through Council’s corporate website - the look and feel of the original site will still be preserved by PANDORA.

The BRISbites website was captured and preserved by the State Library of Queensland’s Gina Tom who works together in the John Oxley Library with colleague Maxine Fisher on the PANDORA Archive .

This was one of several hundred online Queensland publications added to PANDORA by The State Library over the course of the last year.

PANDORA contributor Gina Tom

For more information on the PANDORA Archive visit the National Library of Australia’s website at http://pandora.nla.gov.au/

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There are three new community-created digital stories now available on Queensland Stories. The first story is from the Sandgate and Bracken Ridge Action Group (SANDBAG) about the economic development of the Sandgate area. The other two stories were created at the Yugambeh Museum as part of the Online Indigenous Language Resources and Community Workshops OPAL project. Sisters Robyn and Eileen Williams tell the stories about their sister Loris and mother Agnes, respectively. Robyn talks specifically about Loris’s time working at the State Library of Queensland and the satisfaction she received from helping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people connect with their history.

You can find these stories here:

Strengthening our local economy – by the Sandgate and Bracken Ridge Action Group digital story

View in Qld Stories

View in YouTube

Loris Elaine Williams – by Robyn Williams

View in Qld Stories

View in YouTube

Just Mum – by Eileen Williams

View in Qld Stories

View in YouTube  

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The Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand held its 2009 conference at the University of Queensland from 20-22 July. Although the Society has been running for 40 years this was only the second time that its annual conference has been held in Brisbane.

On Thursday 23 July, following on from conference events at UQ, the State Library of Queensland hosted a meeting of rare book librarians from university, state and public libraries. Many had travelled from as far away as Western Australia and New Zealand to attend the BSANZ conference and took the opportunity to come to the State Library to view its rare book collection and meet with colleagues in the field. 

Issues discussed included the impact of digitisation on heritage collections, conservation and security of rare materials and the importance of high quality catalogue records.

State Library staff members Irene Sourgnes and Ann Scheu facilitated proceedings with colleague Dianne Byrne leading a tour of the Bold but Faithful exhibition of collection items from the John Oxley Library currently on display in the Talbot Family Treasures Wall on level 4.

The meeting was held in the Bank of Queensland Heritage Collections Learning Room with a selection of rare collection items on display in the Fox Family White Gloves Room.

After lunch Andrew Sergeant from the National Library of Australia gave a presentation on the NLA’s Petherick Collection of Australiana.

The afternoon was rounded off with a tour of the rare and restricted repository on level 4 and the Conservation Laboritory on level 5. 

Overall the response from those attending was extremely positive, the hoped-for outcome being a regular list or blog to continue the discussion.

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The White Gloves Tour of Queensland regional places continues with the latest tour to Rockhampton, Yeppoon, Emu Park and Mount Morgan.

  White Gloves Tour presentation at Rockhampton Regional Library.

  Participants viewing material at Yeppoon Library.

Six presentations were delivered with participants viewing the range of treasures on display, including material about Rockhampton and Mount Morgan’s early development.

The feedback was very positive with extended discussion about the items being toured.  Also, the role, services and collections of the John Oxley Library were presented as part of the series of talks.

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On Monday evening, 13 July, the John Oxley Library hosted Power, play in the achives: doing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender histories.

 E.G. Crichton addresses those gathered in the John Oxley Library Reading Room.

This event was coordinated by the LGBT History Project - an initiative of the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities with the support of the Museum of Brisbane and the State Library of Queensland.

50 people attended to hear 4 diverse speakers present a range of issues involved in collecting, researching and presenting LGBT histories.

Jenny Scott discussed the State Library of South Australia’s “South Australia Memory Radical Dream” website and her activism and advocacy for LGBT visibility in the public archives.

Esther Singer, Vice President of the Australian Gay and Lesbian Archives based in Melbourne shared some of their collection and the issues for this 30 year old community run archive. This collection is of national significance and has supported much research and writing of the topic of LGBT history.

Dr Yorick Smaal, local gay historian, identified the issue of delving into archives when so little is on the record concerning LGBT lives.  Working with what is there (it has been largely the legal record), and ‘reading against the grain’ is the challenge.

Finally E. G. Crichton artist-in-residence with GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco spoke. E. G. Crichton is Associate Professor of Art at the University of California Santa Cruz and shared with us the collaborative work she developed titled “Lineage: matchmaking in the archive.”

The event is part of a larger commitment to profiling and collecting LGBT stories as part of Queensland Memory.

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Three new digital stories are now on Queensland Stories.

These stories were made as part of State Library’s Online Indigenous Language Resources and Community Workshops OPAL project. They were created during a State Library-led workshop at the Yugambeh Museum Language and Heritage Research Centre.

  Visitor at the Black Diggers Memorial, Burleigh Heads

The three stories are about: a Black Diggers memorial that was held at Burleigh Heads, the life story of a young Indigenous woman living in the Yugambah language area, and a son’s memories of his father living in Wanarring, western New South Wales.

You can view all three stories.

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A collection of eleven digital stories created by Year 11 and 12 Modern History students at Park Ridge State High School is now available.

These stories explore the local history of the Park Ridge and Logan areas.

  Logan Village Rural Fire Brigade

They were created as part of the Q150 project Local History Local Hearts (as mentioned in the JOL blog post in April). They tell the story of small businesses, immigration, non-profit organisations and settlement in the fast-growing area.

You can view all 11 stories on the Queensland Stories page

http://qldstories.slq.qld.gov.au/home/storylines.

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View the latest addition to State Library’s digital story collection.

Anna Haebich, Historian in Residence, talks about early life in Queensland in the digital story Becoming Queensland. She uses two photograph albums from collections of the John Oxley Library to illustrate the experience of early settlers: the Nicholson and Lorenz family albums.

Lorenz Family Album

This story has been added to the Storylines collection of Q150 digital stories. View the digital story here.

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The Journey from Yassou to G’Day – Greek Community digital stories

On Friday 3 July, Premier Anna Bligh launched eight digital stories at the Greek Club – titled “The Journey from Yassou to G’Day”. These stories were created by members of the Greek community as part of a Q150 project.

Phillip Piperides

The collection highlights the significant contributions that the Greek community has made to Queensland’s agricultural, social, artistic and economic development. Included in the collection are stories on the Paniyiri Festival, Contessa Diamantina di Roma Lady Bowen, the Nicolaides family and family-run cafes in Brisbane and north Queensland.

You can view all of the stories on the Queensland Stories page http://qldstories.slq.qld.gov.au/home/storylines.

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Continuing our series on the history of the John Oxley Library, in this, our 75th year.

Following the resignation of Mr. Sparkes, as a result of ill health, a librarian was seconded from the staff of the Public Library.  However, beyond this, there was little government interest in the Oxley Memorial Library until the early 1940s.  At this time the Premier of Queensland, the Hon. Frank Cooper, who had an interest in Queensland history, facilitated increased levels of funding and support.  The first full time position was established (initially Marjorie Warham from the Public Library and then Joseph “Laurie” Pring).

  John Oxley Library reading room, 1934.  Image No: 12994

An Oxley Memorial Library Bill was initiated in Parliament in December 1946, subsequently passed, requiring that the Oxley Memorial Library would be maintained as a separate entity with its assets vested in the Library Board of Queensland.  A further provision, of great significance for the future, was the legislative requirement under Section 23A of the Libraries Act of 1943, for the delivery of “every book published in Queensland” to the State Librarian and the Librarian of the Parliamentary Library.

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