Museum puts collection of military aviation history photos online
February 20, 2020 | In the PressFrom Star News (https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-lifestyle/star-entertainment/museum-puts-collection-military-aviation-history-photos)
Thousands of images and digitised photographs from New Zealand’s military aviation history can now be downloaded through a Canterbury museum's new online archives.
The archive is a culmination of 25 years of behind-the-scenes planning and effort at the Air Force Museum of New Zealand in Christchurch.
In 1995, the museum purchased what was then a cutting-edge database, intended as an access tool for people to search for images.
But it had to be situated within the Defence Force computer network and wasn’t available to the general public. People were required to contact museum staff to arrange for reprints.
Now more modern scanning equipment means the historic photos can be digitised to a much higher resolution, while the digital structure of the old database has become obsolete and unsupported.
When the museum began updating its IT system in 2015, there was an opportunity to make the photo archives searchable online.
New image retrieval software was included as a key component of the new system, which now sits outside the defence network.
Matthew O’Sullivan has been the 'keeper of photographs' at the museum for more than 25 years.
“This is a huge step forward for the Air Force Museum, which will revolutionise the way the public can engage with our collections”, he says.
“We hope that people enjoy browsing the available images and encourage them to keep returning to see what’s new.”
O’Sullivan said about 5000 images are currently available online, which is an estimated 0.5 per cent of the total collection, but more are being added every day.
The photos give a fascinating window into the past - from the early days of military aviation in New Zealand through to the early 2000s - and show New Zealanders engaging in operations both at home and abroad, in peacetime and at war.
The digitised archive represents a considerable new resource for researchers, and everyone from family historians and academics to school students, model makers, or those with a general interest in history, should find something of interest.
