Old Perth Mapping historical photos from the State Library collection

Christine: So it’s no secret that the State Library of WA has a rich archive of historical photographs. That is one thing we’ve learnt in this segment and there’s lots of ways you can access those but one of the most interactive ways to explore Perth and parts of WA’s past is through an interactive virtual map called ‘Old Perth’. The name is a little deceptive because there are photos dotted right across the State from the Bungles Bungles in the north to Cocklebiddy in the south and the resource holds more than 10,000 images. It was inspired by a similar project born out of New York City.

Guiding us through the knowledge rich resource is Battye Historian, Dr Kate Gregory.

Hello.

Dr Kate Gregory: Hi Christine.

Christine: And, we have the mastermind behind Old Perth, Associate Professor Andrew Woods, the Manager of Hive at Curtin University. Hello!

Assoc. Prof. Andrew Woods: Thank you, good to see you.

Christine: Thank you for coming in. Now, paint us a picture. Can you describe what Old Perth looks like and how it works Andrew?

AW: Well, when someone brings up the website which is oldperth.org.au they’ll be first be presented with a map and it’s centred on sort of Perth, Northbridge, the Swan River and on that map will be a series of blue dots and each of those dots are located in sort of building locations or lots and if you click through each of those dots, it’ll be a series of images from that location. So, the purpose of the website is to allow us to [coughs]...excuse me...

Christine: Yes...go anywhere and see anything...so

AW: Exactly, by location.

Christine: So, let’s say you live in Maylands and you’re thinking “I wonder what historical evidence there is of this particular street?” You could zoom into the map and see if there’s anything there.

AW: Correct. There might not be any...sorry...dense coverage in that particular area. The site currently has the densest of coverage in Perth CBD and Northbridge area and sort of gradually reducing as it radiates out but there are bits and pieces all over the place.

Christine: Ahh good! Well, look I am very keen to go and have a look. So, what are the images of? We’ve got buildings, people, what’s there Kate?

KG: Yes, well I mean I think this is the beauty of it. I mean not only can we now visualise our historic photographs in a completely different way than we’ve ever been able to at the State Library, so we’ve got now the ability to layer over time through this geospatial kind of mapping, layer over time a site’s history. So as Andrew said, you can click on one of these site locations’ blue dots through the Old Perth website and that will bring up layers and layers, decade by decade sometimes every five years or so, so you get a sense of how that location has changed over time and not only does it include photographs of buildings and roads and streetscapes...[trouble with pronunciation]

Christine: [Laughs]

KG: Let me get my mouth around that word.

It also includes the Perth community and activities that have occurred in Perth’s...within Perth city. So, for instance, some of the locations are as Andrew has indicated especially vibrant. There’s a rich range of sources that can be kind of located at these points, for example Perth Esplanade, now Elizabeth Quay. So, if we look at that site it’s a really, really interesting one because not only do we get the changing view of what has been located at that site and it goes right from...think I looked at this this morning...right from...

Christine: Aahhh there’s a massive page of images.

AW: Oh yes.

KG: [Laughs]

Christine: I’m just looking on it right now. And you can do so everybody. Yeah, go to the Esplanade oldperth.org.au and you can just see picture upon picture and then they go from black and white to colour.

AW: That’s right, you can see that transition in history.

KG: The thing that is really interesting about that one though is it’s not only to do with the site, it’s also to do with everything that’s occurred on that site. So all of the protests, all of the parades, all of the sporting events. It’s just...it’s a wonderful, rich kind of social history that you are able to kind of get a sense of by looking at this visualisation of our collection.

Christine: Yes, there’s an inflated kangaroo. Awww...

AW: Remember the America’s Cup?

Christine: Ahhh yes! Yes! Ooof… that’s really interesting so...

AW: Peter Allen...Jackie Love.

Christine: Yes, 30th of October 1983. Look at that. So I really like the sound of this. So how was Old Perth built Andrew? How have you managed to do this?

AW: Well it started off with an idea. We’ve been working with the State Library for many years now. People may be already familiar with the website we launched in 2016 called ‘Historical Panoramas’ and that showcases very old panoramic photography of Perth and Fremantle so that was a very successful project and we’ve had a range of different projects in collaboration with the State Library and we thought well what shall we look at next? And we thought we might experiment with browsing images by location because at the moment the State Library collection ...I can see a big smile on your face...

Christine: [Laughs] Sorry, I’ll stop scrolling. It’s really good.

AW: Yes, so we thought well it would be interesting to try and find images by location because at the moment with the State Libraries’ search page, you can enter a key word and you’ll find images but it’s also a relatively slow process to try and look through all those images so we thought well wouldn’t it be interesting to just sort of be able to click on a location and bring up images from that spot and the spots beside that and so on.

Christine: It’s so easy to use. I must say I was just looking at Boola Bardip to see what was there beforehand and you can really zoom in on any street, so who actually came up with the idea?

AW: Well, we came up with the desire to search by location and then we had a student who was reviewing different platforms...because we didn’t want to reinvent the wheel if there’s software or platforms that already do what we want, then we will just use those. So, we found a range of different solutions, and the solution that turned out to be the one that...the platform that we used was developed for the New York City Library and it’s called Old NYC and they published their source code. So, we reused that and adapted it to the specifics of what we required here in WA and here we are. So, we’ve launched this site. It has 10,000 images in there at the moment. The State Library collection has got 1 million. So, we’ve got a long way to go to catalogue the full collection but there’s lots of possibilities there...but with 10,000 images in there, there’s just an amazing amount you can still see about how Perth and the surrounding areas have developed over that time.

Christine: Is that 1%. I’m just...

KG: Yes, it is.

AW: Yes, it is.

Christine: It is...yeah look at that.

KG: It is extraordinary, isn’t it?

AW: We’re only going to get to 90%

Christine: [Laughs] He will.

KG: [Laughs] We’ve got a long way to go.

AW: [Laughs]

KG: Given that I think we’ve got something of the ilk of about 70,000 of our photographic images digitised...pictorial collection digitised, so we’ve still got a long way to go before we get to digitising the full collection, it really is a vast collection. But I think the interesting thing for me is, for instance we’ve got this wonderful collection. It’s probably the earliest photographic collection that we have at the State Library taken by Alfred Hawes ...

AW: Stone.

KG: Stone. Thank you. And, so Stone was a lawyer and a photographer and really if you think photography was probably only the daguerreotypes were probably you know invented in about 1840 and only really starting to be used in the sort of mid 1800s – 1850s so Stone’s collection dates from about that period of time so from...he was sort of hot on the heels of the invention of photography and look these images are just...we’ve got a number of albums within our collection; photographic albums that...of his that were donated by ...or put together by family and I suppose they are like family photograph albums of Stone’s photographs. They’re wonderful but now we can visualise; we can get those images out in a totally different way from just through the catalogue so for instance, there are some of Stone’s images feature in and around the site of Government House. That’s probably a good one to look at because you can see some of those very earlier images that were taken by Stone. And then it’s just a completely different perspective on what Perth looked like in those very early years and I mean it’s such a powerful, powerful tool to be able to see how that site has changed over time.

Christine: It is.

Twenty minutes past two.

Associate Professor Andrew Woods and Doctor Kate Gregory with me. We are talking about oldperth.org.au and I had a look at The Esplanade. I’ve now clicked on the Perth Entertainment Centre and you actually have internal photos of concerts. There’s a boxing match in there as well. Black and white one. It looks like you’ve got...aww I don’t know, that looks like a religious ceremony. You’ve got all sorts of photos.

KG: Yes, the Entertainment Centre. That’s an interesting one. So, I think with one of the earliest images is actually...well and probably there might be other images that we have in the collection that are earlier but anyway we’ve got a 1973 image that shows the pouring of the foundations held at Perth Entertainment Centre.

AW: You can’t get much more earlier than that.

Christine: [Laughs] Here is some sand.

KG: [Laughs]

Christine: [Laughs] But important sand because it’s a beautiful site that...yeah

KG: And then all those events through the seventies and lots of sort of interior shots which are quite unusual so as you said boxing, there’s wrestling, there’s all sorts of things in there. And then you know the images go right up to around 2010, obviously prior to the demolition of that building so it’s just an incredible record of how...and you know it captures I suppose the social history of that site.

Christine: Well people might find themselves in these photos. That’s the great thing. You should go and have a look.

Twenty-three minutes past two.

So, I suppose, what is the potential for this resource? Who uses it? Who can use it?

AW: Well, there’s only 10,000 images at the moment and we could be indexing much more both in the State Library collection but there are other collections around WA which could be indexed. Many of the local councils have got collections. There’s the West Australian Historical Society, WestPix for example as well. There’s so many different collections that could potentially be indexed by this. So, if you are looking for a particular image of a building or of an event, then there’s a chance that you might be able to find it this way, particularly by location and if it’s not in that pinpoint, you might just be able to go to the pinpoint next door and it might just be that a photograph was showing two buildings and it’s been indexed to one. So yeah, it’s just a wealth of information and going out to the suburbs, it does thin out a little bit. There might be only a few images in a particular suburb and well that’s something that could be improved by indexing more images from a particular area.

Christine: Yes, that’s true. I’m looking at Central Video Library, 823 Beaufort St from February 1985. Yes, there’s some remarkable images.

AW: I remember it well.

Christine: Do you? [laughs]

Did you return everything? [laughs]

AW: Of course.

Christine: [Laughs] And that’s how you came to be an Associate Professor. Well look, this is a wonderful resource. I am so glad we can tell the rest of the state about it.

If people are thinking well look, I might have a photo from my area that would be good for this, where can they go? Do they submit it to you first Kate?

KG: Come to the State Library. That’s right. Look, we are actively collecting photographs of our State and relating to Western Australia. So, people can certainly get in touch with the State Library and we can have a look and see what there is.

I think also though that as Andrew suggested there’s a lot more that can be done with this and there’s been a broader move within, certainly within collecting institutions and the government as a whole I think to release data to make the data that we have kept in institutions kind of much more accessible to the public. And in some ways once you do that, you are freeing it in a way and you don’t know what’s going to happen with it and it’s open to all sorts of creative intervention and creative ideas so I think we’ve possibly, you know may not have been able to imagine where this kind of quite ends up because it could end up in any number of places.

Christine: So, if someone uses an image like this, can they simply use it for...

KG: Well, some of these are subject to copyright so...yep but all of that information is provided through the oldperth.org.au platform and each image that appears you can click straight through to the State Library catalogue image where it is within the State Library catalogue as well which is a really handy tool as well. And so we will be able to find out copyright conditions on any of those images.

The other thing we’re doing with it is developing curriculum...you know school curriculum. There’s so much that...this can be used in ways to you know...especially I think it’s particularly the year five and year eight curriculum that the State Library has developed....

AW: Correct. Yes.

KG: Yes, history.

Christine: [Surprised] Ahhhh.

AW: Yes, there’s been some plans for year five and eight classes.

KG: Yes. So, it’s terrific I think. The uses of this are kind of I think...we are only just at the start of really knowing how this might be used. It’s very exciting.

Christine: That’s wonderful. There might be some teachers listening who may have knocked off early on a Friday. Caroline says what a shame; seeing so many of these elegant, grand buildings have been demolished.

KG: Absolutely.

AW: Yes.

Christine: Yes, but you can enjoy them in there.

AW: Absolute progress I suppose.

Christine: [Laughs] Yes, well look I think it’s wonderful and I’m going to spend a lot of time tonight going through it myself. Thanks for taking the time to come in on a Friday afternoon. Associate Professor Andrew Woods. Nice to see you.

AW: You’re most welcome. Thank you.

Christine: Doctor Kate Gregory. Are we going to maybe see you next Friday?

KG: Yes, yes!

Christine: Fingers crossed. Alright, I won’t say anything more. It will be a surprise. Talking about oldperth.org.au. Go and check it out. 10,000 photos now but the plans are to put many more up.