The State Library of Victoria has begun an ambitious new
project digitising a huge collection of photographs from the 1970s. Taken by volunteers from a group called the
Committee for Urban Action (CUA), the collection comprises over 2000 reels of
35mm film, totalling over 70,000 photographs.
The CUA were concerned by what they saw as the destruction
of Victoria’s building heritage, and sought to preserve on film the
streetscapes of inner-city Melbourne and regional towns in Victoria. On average each town or suburb had
approximately 800 photos taken during the project. Their collection of film was donated to the
State Library in 1977, where it has sat in storage for over 40 years.
The SLV’s 2014 Annual Appeal raised funds to make this collection
more accessible to the public. The pilot project has seen the digitisation of 3000 images from the collection, focusing on streetscapes from inner-city
Fitzroy
and the regional town of Castlemaine.
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| Hargraves Street, Castlemaine, from Lyttleton Street to Templeton Street, west side. From the CUA collection |
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