Herberton, the First Town Settled in 1880 on the Atherton Tablelands of Far North Queensland

Herberton, the first town settled in 1880 on the Atherton Tablelands of Far North Queensland, offers a multimedia view of its heritage in an interactive CDrom created with the funding of a Queensland State Library Innovation Grant. The CDrom makes information readily available to libraries and their members, as well as to the greater community including people who visit our community and express an interest in Herberton's history. One thousand copies of the CDrom have been made and additional ones can be made easily if the demand arises.

Process

It was an auspicious day when Herberton Shire librarian Joan Holden took note of the availability of the 1999 Queensland State Library Innovation Grant applications. Having had numerous visitors to the library express an interest in Herberton’s history, she recognised the potential for using such a grant to develop and present information associated with local history in a form accessible to the general public.

Soon a group of five collaborators included librarian Joan Holden, Herberton Shire Councillor Ivan Searston, secondary school teacher and local history enthusiast Mary Searston and multimedia partners Jerry and Melissa Jeffress. Together we envisioned the production of a multimedia CDrom that would offer a sense of Herberton’s colourful history through an interactive format. Ivan and Jerry transferred our dreams into a carefully crafted framework for the project and hammered out the details for the grant application. We felt that this CD would be only a beginning and could serve as a model for additional works devoted to local history.

Grant approval was thrilling! It signalled the official beginning of arranging interviews, videotaping local events devoted to local history, gaining access to historical photographs, collecting text relevant to town history and tin mining as well as preparing a searchable database for the town’s cemetery.

The work involved numerous community members whose cooperation and contributions of stories, poetry, old photographs, memories and local knowledge made the past come alive. Contemporary photographs and original music added colour and depth to a perception of ongoing life in the community.

Gathering data was only part of the work. Weaving it together into an interactive experience was a challenge. In addition to extensive text, the CD contains over 20 minutes of video, over 37 minutes of audio about recollections of life in Herberton plus more than 1000 contemporary and historic images of the Herberton area.

Just as Herberton’s Heritage has many facets, so too does the CDrom. It provides a variety of sections for the viewer to explore including:

• video movies which focus on events at the annual Herberton Tin Festival where traditional tin mining and timber cutting activities take place alongside damper making contests.
• audio interviews with members of pioneer families reminiscing about the past and providing a hint of the local flavour alive and vigorous in the 21 Century.
• maps and images of the town itself with its many heritage buildings
• text and old photos highlighting the town’s history
• video movie which captures RailCo’s historical steam train as it arrives at Herberton Station
• a searchable database for the cemetery plus photos of some gravestones including that of Padre White, the founder of Anzac Day observances
• text and images on the history of tin mining in Herberton
• images, text and audio about the War Memorial

Technical Details on the Creation of the CDrom

The Celebration of Herberton’s Heritage CDrom was created using:

• Digital video camera (Canon MV1)
• Sennheiser mike
• Pentium Computer
• Miro30+ and MiroDV300 to capture video clips
• Adobe Premiere 4.2 – Digital Video editing software
• An Awai Mini disk digital audio recorder
• CorelDraw7, Photopaint7 & Fireworks3 graphics programs
• Ligos MPEG Compression Software to make digital video compatible with the CD.
• Macromedia Dreamweaver 3 - HTML authoring software
• TrueSpace 4.3 – 3D design and rendering software
• Sound Forge 4.5 – Digital sound editing software
• Acid Music – Music creation software
• FastMenu - Auto Run software for the initial splash menus

The CDrom is presented like a WWW site and requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x or greater. All web page layout and buttons are original creations utilising imagery from Herberton. The numerous high quality movies on board provide a charming array of people, accents, music and events.

Library Innovation Grant a Blessing

Herberton was once a bustling tin mining town, established in 1880. Over the years tin mining grew less profitable and eventually the market collapsed. Timber cutting kept some families going. Now that too has diminished. Herberton survives, rich in caring neighbours and other small town blessings, yet concerned for the children’s future. Herberton retains that miner’s sense for spotting rich seams and has begun to take note of the rich seam of history that runs through the town. Herberton has started to pursue a heritage theme and is taking action to ‘own’ its image. The Queensland State Library Innovation Grant enabled our community to use multimedia in mining the past with the hope of passing along valuable memories, of making the information readily accessible to the public, and of inspiring others to take up and continue this work of acknowledging and honouring the past.

Philosophical Aspects to the Creation of the CDrom

Until recently, film/video/sound/animation productions required studios with heaps of expensive equipment. Most studios were in the cities. Anyone interested in these media could only learn at universities located in cities and eventually work in association with studios in cities. Rural life meant fewer opportunities.

Technological developments are steadily removing geographical limitations. Equipment and software are available at increasingly affordable prices for those interested in creating multimedia productions. As geographical remoteness becomes less of a burden, new roles are emerging for youth and other folk in rural life.

We suggest that Rural Life can include local multimedia production teams to record and share with others around the world some of the rich history, music, art, crafts, sports, geographical highlights and glimpses of Rural Australians.

This is cause to Celebrate.

JaMworks

Jerry & Melissa Jeffress...... from our solar-powered home in the Bush just outside Herberton

Photographs

These images are screenshots from the CDrom "Herberton - Celebrating Our Heritage". With the exception of the historic photographs, these images were recorded by Jerry Jeffress of JaMworks.

State Library of QueenslandVersion 1.0