 RAAHC LIbrary - by Peter Hartup
The RAAHC Library is to be renamed as the 'Sir Roden Cutler VC Research Centre'. The Centre has settled into its new premises well and we have been getting on with our preservation and digitisation projects.
We have made some acquisitions from the plethora of new publications related to the centenary of the First World War, and more broadly on artillery topics. Recent acquisitions can be seen
by clicking here.
Preservation and Digitisation
We have completed transfer of approximately 80 donated photograph albums from unsuitable mountings to quality long-term archival storage media, and will complete scanning these images over the next month or two. This will enable us to open the collection online for assistance from members in captioning individual images.
Our collection of VHS videos has been transferred to DVD. The quality is decidedly variable, but at least the transfer to digital storage means the quality is at least "locked in". Now that we have these videos in a digital format, further conversion to MP4 format for display via artilleryhistory.org is underway. A sample of our output can be viewed
by clicking here.
Unfortunately we still have a few Beta and other formats which we could not convert using our own resources. If anyone can help us out, please contact the Library at raahclibrary@gmail.com.
Periodicals such as Cannonball are being scanned into searchable PDF format and uploaded so that words and phrases can be searched for within the collection. Cannonball issues from number 56 onwards have been uploaded and indexed for searching. This has already paid dividends in our ability to answer some queries away from the Library, improving our response times considerably.
Journals and newsletters from the state and unit associations will be processed progressively.
In response to a number of queries we've also scanned and uploaded about 40 maps and plans. You can see a sample by clicking here.
Artillery Register
New South Wales and Tasmania have been fully migrated to our online database, including 2,822 images which have been processed, resized and watermarked with our logo. Phew!
Entries for other states are up there, but images are not (yet).
We have developed a display format, which you can see a sample of
here.
The Future
We are nearing the time when we "expose" all this database goodness via artilleryhistory.org. Our webmaster Graham Hampton has done some testing and it looks like this is achievable.
Once this is done, things will really take off as our members will be asked to help out with captioning, and tagging with subject headings.
Can You Help?
The image below is believed to be the January CO/CI Parade in 1968. Can you help us identify any of the participants?
Please provide any information you may have to:
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