Video Tape Archives and Map Geo-referencing

Image courtesy Discogs

The latest issue of the Friends of the Battye Library Newsletter (November 2018) carries two issues of particular interest.  The first relates to the SLWA collections pf magnetic video camera tapes, which are the original video tapes produced during interviews and so on for producing documentaries.  Dating from the 1980s, the tapes are being superseded by digital recordings, creating a 3-decade archive.  Digitisation costs are high, storage conditions less than ideal, and the equipment and expertise to play the tapes is disappearing.  The article discussed various options for the preservation of WA’s video heritage.  The second insight into changing technologies concerns the geo-referencing of early-mid 20th century metropolitan sewerage plans.  The plans show considerable detail of building forms and document swathes of ‘lost Perth’.  Geo-referencing by Friends volunteers has been completed, and the plans will soon be available through a web mapping interface.  Finally, nostalgia for historians of a certain age in the Battye’s recent acquisitions is a screen print used in the cover art on the 1982 mini-album No Money by Perth new wave band The Dugites.