News archive 2000

Picture Australia postcards take to the streets

7 December 2000

As of today, Picture Australia postcards are available across Australia through Avant Card free postcard outlets in every state. Look for the postcards at your local cafes, community centres, cultural institutions, theatres, etc., over the next few weeks. If you miss out, please contact us and we will be happy to forward some postcards to you.

Start of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, 1971; Start of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, 1971; State Library of New South Wales

Access to more images

5 December 2000

Picture Australia is well on the way to providing access to half a million images. The latest figures for the image contributions from each participating institution are below.

Institution Number of images
Australian War Memorial 17,722
National Archives of Australia 7,449
National Library of Australia 23,556
State Library of NSW 264,215
State Library of Tasmania 2,938
State Library of Victoria 159,813
University of Queensland Library 73
Total 475,766

 

Picture Australia wins an Australian Internet Award!

28 November 2000

Picture Australia today won an Australian Financial Review Australian Internet Award 2000 in the Arts Category.

Picture Australia is very proud to be the recipient of an award granted by over fifty judges from every sector of the community; an acknowledgement of the value of the service to all Australians.

Picture Australia won because it is an:

  • "Excellent portal for Australian cultural material of a pictorial nature
  • Seamlessly integrates multiple multimedia databases into an elegant visual experience for the customer
  • Use of metadata is excellent."

The award ceremony was broadcast live over the Internet (webcast, that is) from the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre. You can relive the moment yourself by following the appropriate webcast link on the Australian Financial Review Australian Internet Awards web site.

[Winner of an Australian Financial Review Internet Award

The AFR Australian Internet Awards finals

18 October 2000

Picture Australia is one of three Arts category finalists in the Australian Financial Review Australian Internet Awards 2000. The award ceremony will be held at 7 pm on 28 November 2000 at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre. Stay tuned for details.

The database has also been updated and now includes 472,388 images:

Institution Number of images
Australian War Memorial 17,720
National Archives of Australia 7,428
National Library of Australia 21,978
State Library of NSW 264,204
State Library of Tasmania 2,938
State Library of Victoria 158,070
University of Queensland 48

 

The AFR Australian Internet Awards semi-finals

13 September 2000

Picture Australia has reached the semi-finalist stage of this year's Australian Financial Review Australian Internet Awards 2000 in the Arts category.

[Semi-finalist in the Australian Financial Review Internet Awards

Picture Australia is launched!

4 September 2000

The Picture Australia service is formally launched by the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Mr Bruce Scott, in a ceremony at the National Library of Australia. Publicity materials are on their way around the country and the word is officially out that the service is available to all. The latest statistics on the number of images contributed by the participants are:

Institution Number of images
Australian War Memorial 17,190
National Archives of Australia 7,428
National Library of Australia 21,978
State Library of NSW 264,213
State Library of Tasmania 2,644
State Library of Victoria 157,602
University of Queensland Library 36

 

Our first university

31 August 2000

The Queensland University Library starts the process of joining Picture Australia with a contribution of around 40 photographs from the Images of early Brisbane collection at the Fryer Library. They are the first university to contribute to Picture Australia.

 

Archives are in!

30 August 2000

The National Archives of Australia become the first archives to join the Picture Australia service. They contribute over 7,000 images from their Australian Overseas Information Service collection, including many wonderful images of Australian life in the 1950s.

 

It's a write-up

29 August 2000

An article on Picture Australia appears in The Australian, pending the countdown to the launch of the service.

 

The image 'stats'

7 August 2000

The current number of images in the service is 461,805. The breakdown of contribution by the image providers is as follows:

Institution Number of images
Australian War Memorial 17,720
National Library of Australia 21,975
State Library of NSW 263,010
State Library of Tasmania 2,653
State Library of Victoria 156,447