More about the rescue
Photographic Negatives
The Battye Library's Pictorial Collection of nearly 1,000,000 images covers social and industrial history from all corners of the State, for example, from far north cattle stations to the early days of whaling...
Films from the State Film Archive
The State Film Archives, the only regional film archive in Australia, contains over 3,000 titles in film and videotapes. It is a collection of unique historic and contemporary films...
The Rescue
The purpose of this section is to provide the community with further information about the HRRC project in relation to the actual rescue of significant historical records...
The Rescue
Newspapers
The Battye Library holds the most complete collection of Western Australian newspapers in the world. There are 971 separate newspaper titles, both current and ceased, representing almost full runs of all newspapers issued since 1830, including a few in manuscript form. Newspapers provide a detailed record of communities and individuals, which is mostly not available elsewhere. The collection is the most heavily used of all collections in the library. For much of the collection, only one copy of the newspaper is available. The poor quality of newsprint means it becomes brittle and discoloured over time to the point where pages can no longer be handled or read. Regular public use can lead to damage and speed the process. Without microfilm copies, information in older newspapers could be lost for all time.
All at risk newspapers should be microfilmed. Newspapers would be collated, conservation treatments done, and then newspapers would be filmed. Every frame of film is checked to ensure that filming and processing meets international and Australian standards. These steps are necessary so that when the newsprint finally disintegrates on what could be the only copy in existence, there is certainty that the microfilm copy will survive and that the information has not been lost for research.
The community has already demonstrated a need for the information newspapers contain and the demand will increase. Microfilm is an ideal way to preserve these materials. It is relatively cheap to produce, and comparatively easy to reproduce. Properly processed and stored, the archival master should have a life span of 500 years. Microfilm reels can be easily duplicated and made available in regional public libraries.
There is the added advantage that microfilm can be digitised. This means that every page captured on microfilm can be made available online and accessible to anyone with access to the Internet. Recent developments will enable keyword searching of digitised newspapers; a real boon for researchers. This allows many screens of information to be scanned automatically so that people can search for names of family members, location or subject in seconds, compared with the hours it takes to search pages and pages of information.
The State Library had 11,591,612 hits on its website in 2003-2004 and 2,858,525 searches on its database. Many of these hits and searches could translate into potential users of online newspapers.
