Swinburne Library Blog

Image: The Swinburne Communicator, 1982

All of Swinburne's images in Swinburne Image Bank are captured by Picture Australia, which provides access to pictures of Australia's past and present including photographs, objects, maps and works of art.

Picture Australia has created themed trails of images to bring together highlights from the collections of all the participating agencies on particular themes. When you click on a trail, a selection of images relating to that theme will be displayed. The 'Innovations and inventions' trail displays selected innovations developed at Swinburne.

Here are extracts from the Picture Australia Educational Value Statement for the Innovations and Inventions theme:

'Innovations and inventions' features Australian inventions developed between 1876 and 1991. The images show in chronological order some of the challenges that Australians have faced and the solutions that they have devised. There are iconic inventions such as the Hills hoist and the drip-fire rifle used at Gallipoli during the First World War. A still from what was probably the world's first full-length feature film, 'The story of the Kelly Gang', is included. More recent inventions from Swinburne University of Technology conclude the trail.

The trail displays innovations developed at Swinburne University of Technology that make use of microprocessors and biophysics equipment. Some of these inventions, such as a hovercraft and a vehicle in the Shell Mileage Marathon, improve the environment. Others enhance lives, including a writing tool for disabled people, equipment used by a body artist to enhance sensory experience and a data acquisition system for recording electroencephalograms (EEGs).

The inclusion of our images in the 'Innovations and inventions' theme is an excellent illustration of the constant "theme" of Swinburne throughout its one hundred years - technology, innovation, applied research, enterprise, industry links. The 21st century Swinburne continues with this theme, as Prof Andrew Flitman says in his introduction to the June 2009 issue of Swinburne Magazine:

Australia's economic prosperity rests on the important contributions made by Australian universities - a point highlighted in recent reviews of the Australian Innovation System and higher education. Without creating knowledge and developing innovative minds we will not thrive in the 21st century.
Swinburne University of Technology is a hands-on partner in striving for answers to future challenges...