Competency 8 -- Research Visual/Multimedia

Digitization of material in archives and special collections has become more prevalent since access is becoming the focus of most archives and special collections. Although I have not addressed this in my blog so far I would be remiss if I went the whole semester without addressing digitization. The following images show the project that the National Library of Australia has undertaken.

The description the website gave before the images was "As of 30 June 2008, a total of 134 228 collection items (consisting of 389 830 images) have been digitized. As of 31 December 2008, the total reached 139,533 items (410,175 images). This includes pictorial material, maps, sheet music, manuscripts, and selected print items. The graphs below illustrate the breakdown of the Library’s digital collections."

Graph 1 – Number of items in the National Library’s digital collections by collection format, as of 31 December 2008

National Library of Australia. 2009. Digital Collections (Items) as of 31 December 2008. http://www.nla.gov.au/digital/images/Graph1Dec2008.JPG

Graph 2 - Number of images in the National Library’s digital collections by collection format, as of 31 December 2008

National Library of Australia. 2009. Digital Collections (Images) as of 31 December 2008.
http://www.nla.gov.au/digital/images/Graph2Dec2008.JPG

The library I work for is also undertaking a digitization initiative. We do not have nearly the numbers of the National Library of Australia but are starting the project to make our collections more accessible to the public as a whole.