NSW public library wiki

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
Minutes for 27 March 2014

 
**Local Studies Librarians meeting
27 March 2014 9.30-4pm
State Library NSW
**
Minutes

Attendance: Andrew Allen (Campbelltown); Joan Rowland (Ku-ring-gai); Ann Crump, Judy Messiter (Lake Macquarie); Judy Nicholson (Maitland); Sue Ryan (Newcastle); Kelly Mitchell (Stanton); Helen McDonald (Sutherland); David Clarke (Hurstville); Kasia Malicka (Burwood); Simone Collins (Waverley) John MacRitchie (Manly); Jenny MacRitchie (Botany); Jane Elias (Holroyd); Mandy Keevil (Ashfield); Angela Phippen (Ryde); Danielle Gates (Clarence Regional); Clinton Johnston and Aleem Aleenallik (Marrickville); Donna Braye (Mosman); Ellen Forsyth (SLNSW); Georgina Konstanta (Wollondilly); Shirley Ramrakha (Willoughby); Jeff Stonehouse (Port Macquarie-Hastings); Neera Sahni, Geoff Barker (Parramatta); Catherine Hardie, Kirstin Cox (Canterbury); Georgina Keep (Randwick); Jennifer Madden (Bankstown; Lynn Bonomini (Goulburn-Mulwaree); Marisa O'Connor (Wollongong); David Sansome (Canada Bay); Michelle Goldsmith (Wyong); Helen Thompson (Macquarie Regional); Marilyn Gallo (Fairfield); Ken Donnellan (Kiama); Geoffrey Potter, Belynda Jaeger (Gosford); Amie Zar (Leichhardt); Naomi Bassford (Lane Cove); Kay Shirt (Lithgow) Kirsten Broderick (Rockdale); Leanne Whatmuff (Wentworth Shire Library); Michelle Nichols (Hawkesbury); Roxanne Seaward (Bowral); Libby Watters, Jane Britten (Waverley).

Apologies: Mark Butler (Willoughby); Marilyn Taylor (Leichhardt).

1. Sally Hone, Curator of Oral History at State Library, NSW. 
Wagga Wagga 2012 flood project.

Sally spoke about the Wagga Wagga Flood project 2012 as an example of collecting disaster-related community oral histories. This was a joint Wagga Wagga City Council/State Library project. Professional interviewer Sherry Morris was engaged to collect interviews from a cross-section of individuals involved with the floods as civilians, Council Officers and Emergency Response personnel. 
Sally Hone believes there is no right or wrong time to begin interviews following a disaster. In some disasters involving deaths, raw emotions may make interviewing difficult from the subject and interviewers' perspective. Wagga interviews were recorded several months after the actual events. A fairly wholistic account of events was gained, along with information on thoughts, feelings, humorous episodes and even smells in the flood area. Comparative information between flood events was obtained from long-term residents. 
The different backgrounds of participants will bring forth different reactions/memories/ responses to events. Somali families experienced feelings and memories which reminded them of flight from war-torn areas in their homeland. Where photographs are collected from participants, be sure to obtain signed permission forms and descriptive data if possible. Interviews were conducted with Emergency personnel, a Council Engineer, community volunteers etc. Officials were surprisingly frank in their responses and observations. Tensions between Local and State authorities were evident in the interviews. 
Sally Hone recommended that anyone doing disaster-based oral histories read Emily O'Gorman's Flood country, published by the CSIRO, ISBN: 9780643101586. This book shows how disasters are cultural events in nature. 
The Wagga Wagga flood oral histories are available online at Flood futures website 
There are full recorded interviews without transcripts there. The budget for the project was roughly $22,000. The interviews were recorded from May 2012 to January 2013. The oral history interviewer's fees were roughly $55.00 per hour. Research time, interview time, travel time and staff time were major components. Since the interviews were completed volunteers have been compiling logs to help researchers using the material. Helen Klaebe in Queensland runs oral history projects with trained volunteers. Be conscious of the quality of recordings and the formats used. 


2. Department of Veterans’ Affairs and Board of Studies. James Rogers and Richard Reid, DVA.
Australians at the Western Front. 

The Department of Veterans' Affairs are responsible for the care of veterans, compensating veterans, and commemorating the service of veterans. The DVA have a suite of commemorative war history websites that are highly interactive. Recently there has been an upgrade of the 
Western Front website to the new version Australians on the Western front 1914-18
45,000 Australian troops died on the Western Front. 
The websites seek to link people who may never be in a position to visit war sites to events which happened 12,000 miles away. A very good idea of the battlefields and their histories could be obtained virtually. There are 40 key places that Australians fought on the Western Front. the website examines 12 of these in detail. 
Each significant site has information, maps, panoramas that tell what happened there. battalion diaries, drawings, audio are other means used to help tell stories. A few representative stories are used to tell a wider experience. The aim is to hold the interest of website visitors for 5-10 minutes, and get them to remember the essence of what they see. The stories build context and focus on personal or dramatic events that help convey broader meaning. When developing the site the question was continually asked &quot;What can we use to 
 tell the story?&quot;The site is recommended for secondary students. A Gallipoli campaign website is also available, and contains diaries, photos, drawings etc. 

3. [[https://www.slideshare.net/PublicLibraryServices/local-studies-librarian-template-version |Scott Wajon, Manager, Digitisation at State Library, NSW, discussed standards and guidelines for digitizing your collections including those related to images, archives/documents, and ephemera. Scott Wajon's presentation Digital Practice Guidelines: the new generation can be viewed here.]]



4. Brooke Hutchison, SLNSW on Pinterest and Elise Edmonds on the SLNSW first world war project, research guide and online links. State Library would like to include WW1 related event/program posts on Pinterest from Pinterest-registered public libraries. Other public library Pinterest uses include Public Library news, photos of library buildings. Encourage use of #nswpubliclibraries hashtag. State Library First World War project highlights SLNSW large collection of WWI diaries/letters/ephemera. Great source of school resources. SLNSW is currently taking expressions of interest for WWI 3-tier program of presentations across NSW regional libraries. SLNSW holding an exhibition of WWI war diaries and letters in July-September 2014.

5. General business

a) WWI related websites
Imperial War Museum Lives of the First World War
Europeana 1914-18
Remember me: echoes of lost generations CWGC (Education resources for secondary students from Commonwealth War Graves Commission)
b) Other websites of professional and historical interest
Bodleian Libraries Broadside ballads online (Interesting descriptive search capability)
Bayerische StaatsBibliothek image search (Image based similarity search)
Darwin military museum (Defense of Darwin. Sound recording unit for visitor's memories)
Singapore Memory Portal (Sound recording spaces as part of displays)
Local Studies information from IFLA Singapore 2013

Local Studies Wiki address
c) Local Studies Audit update 
A good number of responses received. SLNSW beginning to collate data, but will take time.
d) What's happening in your local studies at your library?
Auburn Library has released a cookbook The flavours of Auburn
Clarence Regional Library is undertaking an Oral History project.
Gosford Library is developing Heritage Walking tour apps using Mytours apps. Terrigal walk is live, a Mann Street Gosford walk is under development.
Note that the Australian Dictionary of Biography has started revising early biographies, given the exponential growth in early newspaper access on TROVE.
e) New organising committee members. Donna Braye (Mosman) and Geoff Potter (Gosford) are happy to continue in these positions, but new helpers are always welcome. Contact Geoff or Donna if you wish to be involved. Work is shared, and it is not too onerous. Much of this involves contacting potential speakers for future meetings.
f) Next meeting - Ashfield Library, possibly a Thursday in October?
Possible topics include Metadata/Blogs/Audio Video use in Libraries.

Thanks to our speakers, and Ellen Forsyth for her support of Local Studies.

Meeting ended 4pm.