Storylines Q150 digital stories: Treasure collecti...

In 2009 Queensland marked 150 years of separation from New South Wales (1859 – 2009).

State Library of Queensland celebrated the official Q150 sesquicentenary program through the commissioning of digital stories that captured the diversity of Queensland’s people, places, and events and more importantly, provided a snapshot of Queensland stories and experiences during the 2009 sesquicentennial year.

The 87 digital stories selected for Storylines focused on the 'Queensland identity.' The digital stories also complemented State Library’s existing Oral history collections. 

At the time digital storytelling was a new format, an alternative to an Oral History in which an audio recording is made of people talking about their lives or experiences. Digital Stories are similar to mini documentaries in that they consist of personal narratives focusing on a central idea or topic, are 4-5 minutes in length, and combine images, music, spoken narrative and video. They can be histories, memories, yarns or dreams. 

Queensland is a huge and diverse state. Selecting which stories to capture visually was not an easy task. Initially, a list of Queensland Q150 icons was used as a rough guide to select stories which were mapped according to Queensland’s people, places and things. 

Some of the Q150 icons were so important it was essential a digital story be created about them. They include historic Yungaba and the story about Queensland’s Lucas Paw Paw ointment. Other icons provided more of a journey to a story, such as the much loved Big Pineapple in Nambour led to John Birmingham presenting a digital story about Queensland’s ‘big things’ (including the pineapple, of course). Being Queensland, there also needed to be a story that referred to our state’s love of ‘footy’ and ‘beer’, so Shane Webcke narrating a story about Queensland pubs was a match made in heaven.