Archive for February, 2011

Preserve or perish : saving the Library’s digital maps

Hundreds of digital maps in the National Library of Australia are in danger of being lost. These physical format electronic maps are held on media such as floppy disks, CD-ROMs, DVDs and USBs. Some are under threat because they are not intended for long term storage. For instance, the average life of a floppy disk [...]

Walking around singing a song: what the week brings in.

I’ve been here a little over a year now, and there are some days when I walk along the corridors thinking : “Wow, I work at the NATIONAL library!”  How did I ever manage to get into such a large institution? I suppose for long time Canberrans and public servants this might sound naive at best, but coming [...]

Oh that darn sticky tape!

Although I am part of preservation, I will mainly blog about what goes on in the bindery. With around 10 million books, there is no shortage of work for Dave, Neale and I. Let me state that I am not a paper conservator; I used to be a picture framer, and used conservation techniques such [...]