Online access to an additional 15,645 historic photographs

Royal visits, soldiers departing for war and Auckland scenes and events from 1935 to 1944 are among the 15,645 photographs recently added to Auckland Libraries’ Heritage Images Online database.

The newly digitised images have been sourced from supplements of the Auckland Weekly News published during this time.

“There are some fantastic images from these supplements covering a broad range of subjects from global conflict of the day, scenic views of Auckland, royal visits and local events,” says Auckland Libraries Manager, Allison Dobbie.

“They provide a pictorial depiction of New Zealanders and New Zealand life during that time, with a focus on events within the Auckland region.”

Many of the photographs featured tell the story of New Zealand’s involvement in World War II, including portraits of soldiers, images of soldiers departing for war and scenes from the battlefields.

Auckland Libraries holds an almost complete run of Auckland Weekly News pictorial supplements from the supplement’s beginnings in 1898.

This wealth of images has been difficult to access in the past, due to limited indexing of the material and the fragility of the original paper copies. Through digitisation, Auckland Libraries are now able to make these images accessible to customers.

Most images are taken from large bound volumes of newspapers, using a digital camera to capture an entire page of photographs. To protect the fragile volumes, photography is carried out onsite at the library, using specially modified equipment.

The digital image of the single page is then transformed into separate records for each photograph, with searchable information about each one including a transcription of its original newspaper caption.

“We are steadily working our way through our bound volumes, but we’re also grateful to the Hocken Library in Dunedin for gifting us a number of unbound issues specifically for digitisation, as it is much easier to capture page images from unbound pages”, says Allison Dobbie.

Auckland Libraries’ Heritage Images Online database is a valuable tool for people carrying out research or history fans who enjoy looking back at images from days gone by. The collection features the work of many New Zealand photographers, including significant collections of work by Winkelmann, Firth, Richardson, Radcliffe, Young and Schmidt.

Heritage Images Online can be accessed through Auckland Libraries website at www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz

ENDS

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