Digitisation of Australian newspaper clippings

Digitising Australian newsclippings
Melbourne

In 1924 Newman College at the University of Melbourne was given the personal library of Irish scholar and Melbourne Doctor Nicholas O’Donnell.

Dr O'Donnell's descendants have recently loaned two scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings compiled by Dr O’Donnell in which he tracks the Easter Rising in the Australian and Melbourne press in the context of prior events and events that ensued, covering the period December 1911 to January 1920. Publications featured include the Argus, the Herald, and the Advocate.

With kind permission from the owner, and with the support of the Embassy of Ireland, the University plans to digitise the scrapbooks so that text can be made accessible and searchable and news articles are available for re-use. The scrapbooks are fragile and this is an opportunity to preserve them. This project relates to the centenary themes ‘remember’ ‘present’ and ‘imagine’ and it will leave a lasting legacy and a research resource beyond 2016.