Case Study

National Science and Technology Centre utilises DAMsmart

The National Science and Technology Centre, Questacon, has chosen DAMsmart! to preserve and make available hundreds of hours of original videotape held in the Questacon Archives. Questacon provides an extensive program of science learning and discovery to school students of all ages throughout Australia, and audiovisual materials form a key learning and historical resource for Questacon.

The media collection held at Questacon included 1 inch, Betacam SP, Digital Betacam, U-matic , DV and many other formats, including ¼ inch audio masters. The collection was mostly inaccessible to Questacon staff, and one of the key goals for the digitisation project was to facilitate easy access for Questacon staff for research and education outcomes.

All original media was sent to DAMsmart! where it underwent conservation and migration to Questcon’s nominated digital file formats. DAMsmart! encoded all files to a pre-configured NAS for deployment at Questacon, with different files for preservation and access outcomes. File types included H.264, .dv and Windows Media for desktop access and preview.

The entire collection is now available on-line to authorised users within Questcon. “It is fantastic to finally have this great resource digitised and available to researchers and staff on the desktop. Not only does it expand the learning resources available to the organistion, but the DAMsmart! service has allowed us to preserve the history of the National Science and Technology Centre, as told through the electronic media over the past 20 or so years” said Andrew Wallace, IT Systems Manager for Questacon.