Australian National Airways Freighter Service van, 1946 model / ANA Publicity Dept

The State Library of New South Wales' major subject strengths are Australian history, culture and literature, including Aboriginal studies, Antarctic exploration, family history and genealogy, business and management, social sciences, applied science, biography, health and law. The State Library is home to one of Australia’s most significant historical and heritage collections. As well as nearly 11 kilometres of manuscripts – from nine 1788 First Fleet journals through to the archives of contemporary organisations and writers – the Library holds more than one million photographs. From the earliest surviving photograph taken in Australia – in January 1845 – through to digital photographs taken last month, the Library’s unrivalled photographic collections document with powerful clarity the way Australians have lived their lives over two centuries. You can find out more about the State Library's photographic collections on our website: www.sl.nsw.gov.au/about/collections/photographs.html More broadly the Library’s collecting reach spans a multitude of platforms: the Library’s mission is to collect, preserve and make accessible the documentary heritage of New South Wales. It holds over 5 million items including books, oil paintings, watercolours, architectural plans, engravings & lithographs, magazines and periodicals, posters, ephemera, sheet music, talking books, maps, CD-ROMs, newspapers, microfilm and microfiche, films and videos, computer software, kits, sound recordings, photographs, coins, postage stamps and other objects.

Classic and Antique Cars

We at GetArchive are exploring new methods of image metadata augmentation and verification. Our goal is to make it possible to find images on any topic. In particular, we are trying to verify and fix historic periodization. This collection is made of historic photographs of automobiles that look as if they were taken in the 1940s. The collection is made with aid of a neural image recognition network dealing with the whole image composition rather than with the car model - some cars may be dated incorrectly. Although, while this method is surprisingly good for the purpose of dating and tagging, a certain percentage of images (less than 8%) may not represent automobile, but other vehicle type or visually similar object. Naturally, our next step should be creating numerous datasets for a particular car years&models, but as of September 2022, we found no use to justify the effort.