Whilst doing a tidy-up in the Local History storage area we came across some soon-to-be-historic tech. Equipment items that were in regular use only ten years ago are now becoming retro and are already unfamiliar to some of our younger staff!

The basic cassette dictaphone which was often used for oral-history recording is now obsolete, replaced by much smaller, cheaper and better quality digital devices. We would even struggle to find cassettes to use in it these days.

Beta camera recordings of the Civic Park Spectacular are even stored here, alas the equipment to use them is now almost non-existant. A prime example of the challenges faced for storing digital materials in an ever changing digital world. If we don’t copy from obsolete formats regularly these memories may be lost forever. You can read about these challenges here and some suggestions on the State Library of NSW website here.