Dear 156 Squadron Contributor,

You may have at some time in the past either contacted me thru the 156 Squadron website, or have made postings on the message board or Forum.

Many have made contributions of photos, background info etc (I have to admit some still not published!).

Others have made corrections and clarifications to some of the site data and I always appreciate this.

Thank you all for your input. It appears to have been rewarded.

I have recently been contacted by the Australian War Memorial with a request (I consider it more of an honour) for the site to be Archived by the Australian National Library's archive system (PANDORA).  

What this in effect means is that the 156 Squadron site will be available on the web in perpetuity.

It has always been a concern to me that when I disappeared the site may also follow, it appears now that this will not be the case.

Why the Australian War Memorial? Well I have been in contact with them on many occasions researching the RAAF content of the website and there is a fairly strong Australian contingent in the Squadron. That I am Australian may also have helped.

This selection is even more satisfying in that  it is one of only a few "private sites" to be selected by the Australian War Memorial since the archive was formed.

Thanks to all for your contributions which have made this honour possible. If any contributor to the site who has had material published and now wishes it to be withdrawn then could they please let me know. Be assured that you still retain copyright to any such material.

This does not mean that development of the site is over -  far from it, there is still much to do.

How this unfolded.

----------- Initial email from Australian War Memorial  14/12/08 - http://www.awm.gov.au/

The Australian War Memorial Research Centre aims to build a comprehensive collection of publications relating to the Australian experience of war to assist all Australians to remember, interpret and understand the Australian experience of war and its enduring impact on Australian society both now and in the future. The library has traditionally collected items in print, but we are now committed to preserving electronic publications of lasting cultural value.

PANDORA, Australia's Web Archive, was set up by the National Library in 1996 to enable the archiving and provision of long-term access to online Australian publications. Accordingly, as a PANDORA partner, the Australian War Memorial has been identifying, assessing, selecting and cataloguing sites of relevance to Australian military history for archiving by the National Library of Australia as part of the PANDORA project. Additional information about PANDORA can be found on the Library's server at: http://pandora.nla.gov.au

We would like to include the 156 Squadron website (http://www.156squadron.com/) in the PANDORA Archive and I would be grateful if you would let me know whether you are willing to permit us to do so, that is, grant us a licence under the Copyright Act 1968, to copy your publication into the Archive and to provide public access to it via the Internet. This means that you would grant the National Library permission to retain your publication in the Archive and to provide access to it in perpetuity. We assume that in granting permission all contributors to your publication are informed and in agreement that their work will be archived by the National Library.

There are some benefits to you as a publisher in having your publication archived by the Library. If you grant us a copyright licence, the Australian War Memorial in partnership with the National Library of Australia will take the necessary preservation action to keep your publication accessible as hardware and software changes over time. The Research Centre of the Australian War Memorial will catalogue your publication and add the record to our online book database at: http://www.awm.gov.au/firstopac/

----------- Subsequent email 24/12/2008

I am delighted to inform you that your site 156 Squadron RAF (www.156squadron.com) is now publicly available in the PANDORA Archive. I have scheduled it to be re-gathered every 6 months so that we may have an archived copy of the most current site.

The publication has been catalogued as one of a collection of sites selected to represent specific subject areas that we are interested in collecting and preserving for the future. The catalogue record for the site will soon been included in the Australian War Memorial's Research Centre online public access catalogue available at: http://www.awm.gov.au/firstopac/ or you can go directly to the archived version at the following address: http://nla.gov.au/nla.arc-92021

When accessing the archived version, a title entry page is displayed first. It includes the name of each publication with links to each archived version, as well as to the original publishers' sites, to publishers' copyright statements, a general copyright warning, and other information about the archive.
 

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So keep sending any details you have on the Squadron, secure in the knowledge that they will be around for a long time.

Regards

Robin Riley            www.156Squadron.com