January 2018
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Volume 11 number 1 News January 2018 Newsletter of the Australian Society for History of Engineering and Technology ASHET Pies Exhibition at Unley Library Digitising pre-1920 Australian engineering South Australia journals In 2014 ASHET produced a graphic display in nine panels titled The In 1919 The Institution of Engineers Australia (IEAust) was formed, Meat Pie: Australia’s Own Fast Food. Since then the exhibition has amalgamating a group of Australian engineering societies, most of which been on a tour of over forty local libraries in New South Wales, and is had their origins in colonial times. The journals and transactions of the currently on a tour of libraries in South Australia. amalgamating societies ceased to exist following the formation of IEAust, It has recently been on display for a month at Unley near Adelaide, and although copies of these publications are held in libraries, few of them where the library hosted in conjunction with the exhibition a Master Class have been digitised and in most cases on-line indexes and tables of con- presented by the local TAFE. Here are some images sent by the librarian. tents do not exist, making it difficult to research much interesting material relevant to the history of engineering in Australia. In 2008, ASHET, with the help of a series of grants and a generous contribution in kind from The University of Sydney Library, organised a project to digitise and make readily accessible on-line, the complete cop- ies of two of these journals, the Journal of the Sydney University Engi- neering Society, published from 1894 to 1921 and the Minutes of Proceed- ings of the Engineering Association of New South Wales, published from 1885 to 1921. The work of digitising and indexing round 9,500 pages of text plus a large number of images and drawings was undertaken by the University of Sydney Library. At around the same time Engineering Heritage Victoria and the School of Engineering at the University of Melbourne funded the digitisation of the Proceedings of the Victorian Institute of Engineers and the Melbourne University Engineering Society. Now Ken McInnes, Honorary Research Fellow at the eScholarship Research Centre, University of Melbourne, is leading a project with a target to digitise all the transactions of the proceedings of the Founding Societies of IEAust prior to IEAust’s centenary in 2019, and to imple- ment a program to progressively digitise all other significant engineering related journals and serials. ASHET Pies Display at Unley Library Ken has compiled a poster indicating the progress to date towards achieving these goals. A pdf version of the poster, which includes a list of all the journals currently included in the program and electronic links to all of the publications listed is available on-line at ASHET’s website http://ashet.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Digitisation-Of-Engi- neering-Publications-Before-1920.pdf Completing the digitisation of all Engineering Journals published in Australia before 1920 Nearly a century ago, a publication disruption … The Institution of Engineers Australia was formed in 1919, the founding societies ceased to exist, the publications of these societies ceased, and from 1920 the new series of Journals and Transactions of the IEAust commenced. Digitisation of the transactions and proceedings of the Institution, digitisation of the Founding Societies’ publications, and digitisation of other engineering related colonial era journals, is incomplete. Complete digitisation of all these publications, and indexing down to article level would enable researchers to search across all these sources, and more comprehensively document our engineering history and heritage. Outline This poster paper outlines the current progress in identifying, 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Engineering Association of New South Wales scoping, digitising, indexing and publishing online, all engineering 1870-1920 http://openjournals.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/EANSW related journals and serials published in Australia prior to 1920 and Victorian Institute of Civil Engineers 1854 No proceedings located Institution of invites contributions and collaboration from other researchers to Geelong Society of Architects, Civil Engineers and Surveyors 1858 Engineers Australia help complete this project. No proceedings located Ballarat Institute of Architects, Civil 1919 - current Engineers and Surveyors 1870 No proceedings located Victorian Institute of Engineers 1883-1948 Current Progress https://digitised-collections.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/104 Many NEINSW articles indexed in Trove, Northern Engineering Institute of Scoping and digitising The chart opposite shows the current status of digitisation of known Australian but journals not yet digitised New South Wales 1889-1894, 1908-1920 8 Vols engineering society journals, journals of related learned societies, and other general http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/492698 [8 volumes. Unknown number of articles, pages] still to be done. 8 Vols Melbourne University Engineering Society 1889-1920 https://digitised-collections.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/91280 engineering journals and periodicals, with hyperlinks to completed digitised journals. Note: The “Author and Subject Index to Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers Publications 1920-1968”, IEAust, 1969, The publications of the Founding Societies “still to be done”, are arrowed in red. and Mining Surveyors of Victoria 1857 provides information about all articles in this Only Vol 1 1857-1859 located as Mining Institute of Victoria] period. This has been digitised. Mining Institute of Victoria 1859-1893 No proceedings located [Newspaper Articles exist] Process Australasian Institute of Mining Engineers 1897-1919 Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy 1920- [Quarterly: Vol.1-8 1897-1911, Vol.1-33 1911-1919 Digitised in AusIMM Library] [Proceedings digitised in AusIMM Library] The process successfully used to scope, cost, fund, scan, digitise, index and publish Sydney University Engineering Society 1895-1920 the proceedings of the Victorian Institute of Engineers, 1883-1948, and the http://openjournals.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/SUES Melbourne University Engineering Society, 1889-1920, was to first build a scoping Mechanical Engineers’ Association - Queensland 1887-1894,1897 Meat pie master class No proceedings located [Became Queensland Institute of Engineers] document, as shown below, then obtain quotes, seek sponsors, and ensure delivery. See also: “Some references to early professional Scoping and digitising engineering societies in Queensland (1890-1919)”, Queensland Institute of Engineers 1900-1919 1 Vol [1 volume. Unknown number of articles, pages] 1928 current W.I. George and S.A. Prentice” 1989 - still to be done. 1 Vol - The key steps: http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/18457739 Queensland Electrical Association 1898-1911 1920 1978 ► Copy the contents page of each volume of the proceedings; Only Vol.1 1898 located [Newspaper Articles. Joined Queensland Institute of Engineers 1911] 039X McInnes poster - Scoping and digitising ► Annotate this to identify the number of articles in each volume, to be scanned and Western Australia Institution of Engineers 1909-1920 [10 volumes. Unknown number of articles, pages] 10 Vols still to be done. 10 Vols to be OCRd, to have the text recognised, including front and back matter; South Australian Association of Architects, South Australia Institute of Engineers Scoping and digitising Engineers and Surveyors 1858 1913-1920 2 Vol ► Identify any additional figures, photographs, maps, charts, to be scanned, and No proceedings located [2 volumes. Unknown number of articles, pages] still to be done. 2 Vols whether these were folded, were black and white or coloured, to enable a contractor t Tasmanian Institute of Civil Engineers, Tasmanian Institution of Engineers 1919-1920 Architects, and Surveyors 1856 No proceedings located o ascertain what additional time and labour might be needed to digitise these, and to No proceedings located Note: An index to the Foundation Society Journal Articles exists as a card index, and Electric Club of New South Wales 1895-1897 include them in the electronic copies of the articles; No proceedings located [Became Electrical Association of New South Wales] as a microfiche of the card index. A project to scan this is in progress. ► Provide a summary page showing the scope of work in each volume; Electrical Association of New South Wales 1896-1914 [? volumes. Unknown number of articles, pages] ► Provide a clear understanding of the quality of the indexing required, so that the Electrical Association of Australia 1914-1919 Scoping and digitising meta data could be ported directly to Libraries Australia databases, and be searched [? volumes. Unknown number of articles, pages] still to be done. ? Vols by the public through Trove, National Library of Australia; Electrical Association of Victoria 1905-1914 [? volumes. Unknown number of articles, pages] ► Provide a clear understanding of which Library would host the digitised articles 1905-1920 Scoping and digitising Institute of Local Government Engineers of Australasia Transactions of theInstitution of Engineers, Australia http://search.informit.org/browseJournalTitle;res=IELENG;issn=0155 Transactions ofInstitution the of Engineers, Australia http://search.informit.org/browseJournalTitle;res=IELENG and manage them online in the future. Societies Learned Engineering