Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This black-and-white clip shows the mechanised and computer-controlled mail-sorting process at the newly opened Redfern Mail Exchange, focusing in particular on its innovative system of computer coding that determined the path an item of mail would take. Lines of female operators observe items of mail and operate keys to communicate with a computer. Each item then receives an electronic code. The camera follows the items to the stacking floor along conveyor belts to arrive at despatch. Music accompanies the clip with a voice-over narration.

Educational value points

• This clip provides a close-up view of a 1960s computer, described in the voice-over as an electronic memory and control unit. The computer seen here had a magnetic memory drum and huge banks of integrated circuits and was attended by a single technician. At the time computers were enormous; this example occupied a large room. They were very expensive and could only be afforded by large institutions such as the postmaster-general’s (PMG) department.

• Computerisation was an important development in the collection, sorting and distribution of mail, an endeavour that had previously been highly labour intensive. In the 1960s Australia was at the forefront of these developments. When this film was made, the new Redfern Mail Exchange in Sydney was the largest mechanised mail centre in the southern hemisphere.

• The language of the narration emphasises the efficiency of the new automated system and conveys a feeling of pride in the PMG’s achievement. It spells out the speed of transactions that computerisation ensured. It also identifies the simplicity of operation – ‘the flick of a switch’ – and highlights the number of mail destinations that the system could handle. The busy soundtrack complements the narration to evoke both speed and the sound of machinery.

• The operators shown in the coding units are all women because the director general of the PMG designated the position to 'coding machinists (female)’, causing an industrial dispute. The Australian Postal Workers Union had assumed that the positions would be held by mail officers, and demanded that the pay rate be that of mail officers, regardless of gender. A public service arbitrator resolved the dispute, creating 'mail officer (coding)’, paid less than mail officers but more than coding machinists.

• An early example of the barcode, a method of automatic identification and data collection, is shown being imprinted on envelopes to identify destinations that are then ‘read’ by the sorting machines. A form of barcode had first been patented in 1952. In the course of its development the inventors, Bernard Silver and Joseph Woodland, had extended the use of morse code in creating the bars and employed ultraviolet light to enable the bar impressions to be ‘read’.

• This clip is from a promotional film made for the PMG to showcase the Redfern Mail Exchange and its achievement in communications technology, and to pave the way for further automation in other central mail centres. In 1966 all Australian mail was initially processed for distribution at this exchange.