see also
In May 2007, the digital archives at State Library of WA were removed because the catalogue cannot access the records and some of the images are corrupted.
To get these PDFs online, I could integrate the library catalogue at State Library of WA with a spider to collect meta data. I am a pioneer in Web indexing. This would be a case of me upgrading the libraries catalogue to handle indexing electronic content.
Contact us if you need similar problems solved in your library catalogue. We are experts in meta data and Web indexing.
My father SP Walker worked at the Christian aboriginal industrial mission run by Rod Schenk in 1940-42 at Mt Margaret north of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, in the Goldfields (Latitude: -28.7904, Longitude: 122.147). This material was originally at State Library of WA in Perth but they are removing it to redo some of the corrupted images. This is a stop-gap till their copies are available. I asked them to keep the old stuff up there but no they want to do it the perfect way. Archivists are not technical whereas I am and find this stand-off over process most frustrating. One day I will visit Perth and sort out the technical issues as a software engineer and librarian which I am - a rare mix. Most of my colleagues are BA not BSc (comp sci) so have no idea about technology and fight it all the way - rather upsetting for me. The ignorance of people in power that control such vital information assets is very sad and I in my small way hope to stem the tide of technical ignorance in the library and archives fields. Disk space is very cheap but the process seems to be more important than that in archivists' minds.
In these documents are a host of 1930s photos scanned in by the Battye Library, State Library of WA. Some are corrupted but most are OK. The originals will be only accessible at the Battye Library in Perth once they remove the digital versions.
The Schenks donated the photos to the library to be digitised in 2003 (Knowit Jan-Mar 2003, p.2).
Schenk's records at Battye (Katitjin Sep 03)
Aboriginal arts group in Alice Springs contacted me in July 2010 asking for Margaret Morgan's details so they could get permission to reprint pictures of raffia work from Mt Margaret Mission in their book. This was very rewarding. They found me via this Web page.
The State Library of WA has restored the links below so we now have even more Mt Margaret PDFs!
Source: A drop in a bucket : the Mount Margaret story by Margaret Morgan, 1986, Mission Publications of Australia, Lawson, NSW, Australia, ISBN 0949181013 - out of print.
My father has just about finished a new book on Mt Margaret in the 1950s as well as other industrial missions in the Kimberley that educated aborigines and helped them advance in life to major posts in society in Australia, mainly West Australia.
It was due out in 2009 but it needed a lot of editing by me (Dwight Walker, his son)! In December 2008, the book is waiting for the many citations and modifications to be put in once we buy a PC and InDesign. Then we have to pay for the printing of the book. The book may be out in 2011 at this rate.
We purchased world rights for the music in my father's book so we can sell it anywhere!
Preston Walker died on 10/2/2009 in Brisbane, aged 93. A private funeral was held on 20/2/09 in Brisbane for immediate family. On 21/2/09 there was a huge celebration gathering at Creek Rd Presbyterian Church, Carina, Brisbane with video, photos and letters and tributes given by family and friends for over 2 hours - a quite astounding show of love for Preston Walker and his life over many years in many parts of Australia.
Tragically the book Dwight Walker was editing was not finished before he died mainly due to lack of funds, but his father did see a draft before he died, and it will be published post-humously. A copy of the August 2008 version of the book ex citations and bibliography was published in time for his father to see it and for the funeral so people writing eulogies could collect valuable information about Preston Walker's amazing life.
Many bits from the book are in the obituary written by Dwight Walker published in
Dwight's father was a very popular Christian worker for over 60 years.
In April 2011, Dwight Walker catalogued S P Walker's library using ResourceMate (Windows library software which uses internet copy cataloguing).
In September 2011, the library will be moved from the old family home as it will be sold and Kathleen Walker went into a nursing home.
Part of my consulting is indexing books and PDF files as in the Mt Margaret Mission research.
In 2010, I also setup a searchable book index database at indexdata.info which holds indexes I created as I was researching Mt Margaret Mission. The indexes can be downloaded as PDFs.
Current books indexed are:
More will be added as they finished.
Only Melbourne School of Theology library have listed my indexes in their catalogue. No-one has used it directly except myself.
Created 11 May 2007 13:12 Updated 11 Nov 2011 15:21
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