The University of Queensland

The Fryer Library is the Special Collections Department of The University of Queensland Library. It houses collections which contain printed publications, manuscripts, theses, architectural plans and photographs, which form an exciting resource for researchers and students.

The Hume Family Collection is one such resource which still awaits extensive research. The library's project to digitise the photographs from the collection is aimed at increasing access, while limiting damage, to the originals. By looking at these images we can glimpse both the epic romance and the daily life these people shared.

The story of Walter Cunningham Hume and Anna Kate Fowler has been told in part by two publications. The first, entitled "A Victorian engagement : letters and journals of Walter Hume and Anna Kate Fowler during the 1860s" appeared in 1975 and was written by their grandson, Bertram Hume. It explores the years preceding the couple's engagement, in particular Walter's career and decision to go to Australia, primarily as they were recorded in his journal. After the engagement, Katie's letters to Walter, also in this publication, give the reader an insight into their developing relationship, across the miles, until their marriage.

Published in 1985 and edited by the then Fryer Librarian, Nancy Bonnin, the second book, continues the Hume's journey as it is described in the letters they wrote home to Katie's family in England. Entitled "Katie Hume on the Darling Downs : a colonial marriage : letters of a colonial lady, 1866-1871" , the letters are filled with detail of private and public life, ranging from descriptions of colonial house-keeping to the political events of the day.

These publications draw on a small part of The Hume Family Collection, which include many diaries, journals, letters, Katie's account book, and 14 photograph albums. In order to maximise access to these valuable resources, without increasing damage to the original documents, the Fryer Library applied for and received a grant in 1995.

The National Library of Australia's National Preservation Office Community Grants provided seed funding for the project to digitise, describe and index all of the 972 items in the photograph collection. Scanned images were converted to TIFF file format for storage, compressed using JPEG and stored on the Library's web server. Description data for the Hume images was entered into a Microsoft Access database to create a brief database record for each photographic print and negative digitised, which can later be expanded into a bibliographic/descriptive record. All words in the record can be indexed and searched on. The result is a fast, economic image retrieval system.

The outcome of this project is, that the full potential of the photograph albums, as a resource for researchers, will be achieved. The photographs take us beyond the manuscripts of the collection and allow us to see the personal and public world in which the Hume family existed. Images of family, friends, social activities, and private houses are interspersed with those of public buildings, pictorial records of survey tours, and overseas trips.

This selection was compiled using photographs, journals and letters from the Hume collection.