Finding photographs of Cessnock LGA
Old photographs of the Cessnock Local Government Area (LGA) are held in many library, archive, museum, academic and community collections. While it may seem that many images are available online, it is important to remember that these digitised images are only a tiny part of any organisation’s collection.
No organisation’s photograph collection is entirely digitised. For this reason, after doing online photograph research, the next step is to contact the various organisations to arrange access to their non-digitised photographs. This is particularly true for community historical societies, as few have digitised photograph collections available online. This necessitates an in person visit.
Google
A simple Google image search for ‘old photos of [fill in place name]’ often yields good results and also gives the ability to trace back to the original source.
Cessnock City Library
www.cessnock.nsw.gov.au/libraries/Home
Cessnock City Library has almost 4,000 photographs accessible online from the Library’s Local Studies collection on our website: Choose ‘Local History’, then ‘Local History Photographs’.
Trove: National Library of Australia
https://trove.nla.gov.au
Trove, created by the National Library of Australia, is a one-stop shop for information relating to Australia. It brings together the photograph collections of Australian libraries, universities, museums, galleries and archives. Trove is divided into categories, to search for photographs use the Images, Maps and Artefacts category.
Museums of History NSW
https://mhnsw.au/collections
NSW State Archives and Records has amalgamated with Sydney Living Museums to become Museums of History NSW. Both of these organisations have extensive photograph collections, including images of the Cessnock LGA.
Newcastle Region Library
https://newcastle-collections.ncc.nsw.gov.au/library
The Newcastle Region Library holds images of the Cessnock LGA available in their online photograph collection Hunter Photobank.
State Library of NSW
www.sl.nsw.gov.au
Only a small percentage of the State Library of NSW photograph collection is online. First do an online search, then contact the Library directly with your photograph enquiry. They can help you access their non-digitised photo collections. The State Library’s Small Pictures Collection is a valuable source of images.
NSW State Archives
https://mhnsw.au/collections/state-archives-collection/
NSW State Archives holds thousands of photographs related to our local area: images of coal mines, Department of Education (school) photographs, Department of Public Works photos of country roads, regional area tourism photos and images of war memorials. Some are digitised; others can be ordered via their website.
Flickr
www.flickr.com
The photograph-sharing website Flickr has images of our region. Some can be downloaded, others have conditions imposed by the photographer, so access varies.
Picture Maitland
www.maitlandlibrary.com.au/discover/local-history/picture-maitland
Picture Maitland is Maitland City Library’s online photograph collection. As an adjoining Local Government Area to Cessnock there are a number of images in their collection relating to the Cessnock LGA.
University of Newcastle
https://hunterlivinghistories.com
The Hunter Living Histories collection, University of Newcastle, holds many images of the Cessnock LGA.
Photo time tunnel
www.phototimetunnel.com
Photo time tunnel is photograph business selling historic Hunter Valley photos, you will find photographs of the Cessnock LGA in their collection.
Australian War Memorial
www.awm.gov.au
The Australian War Memorial has thousands of photographs online. Many are out of copyright and so in the public domain. The Museum will usually allow a low-resolution free download of an image in their collection; a higher resolution photograph involves a fee.
Creative Commons
https://creativecommons.org/
Over 500 million images are available to use copyright free on this site.
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