Newcastle council has opened a $400,000 digital processing lab that will allow rare and fragile items dating back to the early 1800s to be preserved for future generations.
The high-tech "DigiLab", located at Newcastle Library, features 3D scanning instruments and robotic page turners capable of converting 2500 pages an hour into digital information.
The lab was co-funded by the council and State Library of NSW, which provided an $85,000 Metropolitan Public Library Grant.
It will enable the council to preserve hundreds of thousands of archival records, photographs, maps, pictures, newspapers and books. The lab will eventually open to the public.
"Sharing our local history and cultural identity is a key pillar for our library service and aligns with the objectives of our Community Strategic Plan 2030," Cr Carol Duncan said. "The library history and heritage collection encompasses more than 440,000 items, with some of these collections dating back to the early 1800s and featuring rare, unique and notable items.
"As the custodians of the city's archives, we look forward to being able to preserve the many ageing records we look after.
"Following our successful digitisation of these records, we look forward to being able to open up this exciting service to our customers."
Manager libraries and learning, Suzie Gately, said greater access to the city's collection would help researchers and creatives.
"The DigiLab will provide rich, high quality content for both physical exhibitions as well as augmented and virtual reality, allowing us to tell Newcastle's stories in new and innovative ways," she said.
"We will also be able to integrate this output with the technologies on offer at our digital library at 12 Stewart Avenue, including the 8 metre-wide digital storywall."
One aspect of the DigiLab available for community use already is the "memory lab", where users can convert VHS, VHS-C cassette and 8mm video camera tapes into digital files for free.
