Projects
The Centre has a ten-year vision to digitise the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Collections of its partners. It also offers a fee-based customised digitisation service for anyone with specific high quality digitisation needs.
The collections that the Centre digitises are divided into the following categories:
- collections identified for priority digitisation under the original DCWA LIEF grant application,
- collections associated with the the ‘Life after Digitisation: Future-Proofing WA's Vulnerable Cultural Heritage’ linkage grant project, and
- local community and private collections.
Current projects
Collections held by LIEF partners
Under the original DCWA LIEF grant application a number of collections held by Centre partners were identified for priority digitisation. The following are some of the collections we have worked for our LIEF partners under various themes:
Archaeology
- 35mm slide and negative collections documenting rock art from various parts of Australia – UWA
Ethnography
- Birrindudu Drawings from the Berndt Museum - UWA
- Blacking Collection of Indigenous African Music - UWA
- The Alpers Melanesian Film Archive - Curtin University
- The Nonja Peters collection of migrant cultural heritage artefacts - Edith Cowan University
Development of Western Australian Society
- Archival documents relating to the Women’s Rights Movement from the Irene Greenwood Collection - Murdoch University
- The Summerhayes Architecture Collection - Curtin University
- WA Printmakers Collection – Edith Cowan University
Sheet Music from ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ 1950
JC Williamson Theatres Ltd.
Museum of Performing Arts
Grant-related digitisation projects
As part of the ‘Life after Digitisation: Future-Proofing WA's Vulnerable Cultural Heritage’ linkage grant project work has commenced to digitise items from the following collections:
- The Aboriginal Language Collection from
- The Museum of Performing Arts Collection (Arts and Culture Trust) from His Majesty’s Theatre
Collections from local community
The DCWA is working with various local governments and community based organisations to digitise items form their collections. Some of the items such as photographs from the Subiaco Museum can be viewed at Collections WA.
Presentations
Unlocking Cultural Collections through Digitisation Webinar
Held on 11th October 2020 by Western Australian University Librarians (WAUL)
Presentations:
- Introduction to the Digitisation Centre of WA by Scott Nicholls, Associate University Librarian, Research and Collections (UWA)
- Using digital collections in research by Professor Ben Smith, Associate Dean, Research (UWA)
- Collection prioritisation by Peter Green, Associate Director, Collections, Systems & Infrastructure (Curtin University)
- Digital asset management by Daniel Rozas Nunez, Manager Collection Care (SLWA)
Digital Transitions Cultural Heritage Roundtable 2023
Held on 1st November 2023 by Digital Transitions (DT)
Theme: Celebrating the Real-World Impact of the Digitisation Community
Speaker presentations are available on DT's website for free: https://heritage-digitaltransitions.com/roundtable-2023-speaker-presentations-access/. Registration required.
Featured presentation from the Digitisation Centre of WA:
De-risking Cultural Heritage Digitisation by Ben Heath, Digitisation Officer of the DCWA (UWA)
Research publications
Arthur, P.L., Hearn, L., Montgomery, L., Craig, H., Arbuckle, A. & Siemens, R. 2021. Open scholarship in Australia: A review of needs, barriers, and opportunities. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 36(4): 795–812. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqaa063
Burrows, T. 2022. Linked Open Data and Medieval Studies: Some Lessons from the Mapping Manuscript Migrations Project. International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 16(1): 64-77.
Champion, E. (ed.) 2021. Virtual Heritage: A Guide. London: Ubiquity Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bck
Champion, E., Kerr, R., Rahaman, H., McMeekin, D. 2021. Time-Layered Gamic Interaction with a Virtual Museum Template. In: Ioannides, M., Fink, E., Cantoni, L., Champion, E. (eds) Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection. EuroMed 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73043-7_26
Champion, E., & Rahaman, H. 2020. Survey of 3D digital heritage repositories and platforms. Virtual Archaeology Review 11(23): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2020.13226
Duval, M., Smith, B.W., Gauchon, C., Mayer, L. & Malgat, C. 2020. “I have visited the Chauvet Cave”: the heritage experience of a rock art replica. International Journal of Heritage Studies 26(2): 142-162. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2019.1620832
Hyvönen, E., Ikkala, E., Koho, M., Tuominen, J., Burrows T., Ransom, L. & Wijsman, H. 2021. Mapping Manuscript Migrations on the Semantic Web: A Semantic Portal and Linked Open Data Service for Premodern Manuscript Research. The Semantic Web – ISWC 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88361-4_36
Koho, M., Burrows, T., Hyvönen, E., Ikkala, E., Page, K., Ransom, L., Tuominen, J., Emery, D., Fraas, M., Heller, B., Lewis, D., Morrison, A., Porte, G., Thomson, E., Velios, A., & Wijsman, H. 2021. Harmonizing and publishing heterogeneous premodern manuscript metadata as Linked Open Data. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 73(2): 240–257. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24499
McDonald, J., Mulvaney, K., Beckett, E., Fairweather, J., Morrison, P., de Koning, S., Dortch, J. & Jeffries, P. 2021. Seeing and managing rock art at Nganjarli: a tourist destination in Murujuga National Park, Western Australia. Australian Archaeology 87(3): 268-293. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2021.1978915
Smith, B.W., Black, J., Mulvaney, K.J. & Hoerlé, S. 2022. Monitoring rock art decay: archival image analysis of petroglyphs on Murujuga, Western Australia. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites: https://doi.org/10.1080/13505033.2022.2131077
Smith, B.W., Black, J.L., Hoerlé, S., Ferland, M.A., Diffey, S.M., Neumann, J.T. & Geisler, T. 2022. The impact of industrial pollution on the rock art of Murujuga, Western Australia. Rock Art Research 39 (1): 3-14. http://www.ifrao.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/39-1-Murujuga.pdf
Tao, Y., Smith, B.W., Mosmann, P., Poon, K., & Walker, B. 2022. Searching for Moon Chow: a joint journey. Life Writing 20(1): 217-236. https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2022.2120593
Xu, Y, Tao. Y. & Smith, B.W. 2022. China’s emerging legislative and policy framework for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. International Journal of Cultural Policy 28(5): 566-580. https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2021.1993838