09 June 2017

National Library of Australia

I received a very unexpected email yesterday. The Aircrew Book Review website is to be archived by the National Library of Australia for public access within its reading rooms and as part of the archived materials available to the public via the Library's online services. All of the content will be available on the 'Pandora' web archive collection and it appears it will be updated annually so at least there's a good chance each archive will be significantly different to the previous one!

This, of course, happens to a lot of websites with original content, but it's certainly not something I even knew about when ABR was created a little over eight years ago. It is quite surreal to be 'recognised' as having created something worthy of recording, but that is all because of the aircrew in the books I dribble about. I just write about what fascinating people did. They did all of the hard work. If someone, somehow, discovers the archived website and its various reviews, perhaps they will find a book or subject that captures them and the lives, experiences and sacrifices of these remarkable flyers will live on long after the last of them is gone.

As an aside, the ABR Facebook group is running a poll for the new 2017 aircrew books that have crossed my desk so far this year. Obviously, it's an ongoing thing and will be updated regularly. The Facebook group is also where you will find quick little updates or news items about new aircrew books, or new discoveries and developments with regard to older books.

Andy Wright