SA Library to preserve war material SOUTH Australia's state library has begun digitising its collection of original pictures, letters and records from World War I to preserve the historic material. Among the items are thousands of Red Cross records, including letters written by family members concerned for their sons, husbands or siblings serving overseas and the information the Red Cross was able to discover. Conservationists say some of the material is quite moving with the Red Cross not prone to "tone down" the details it divulged. In many cases it took more than a year to track down and confirm the fate of those injured or killed in battle. It's very sad. "They were 20 to 23-year-old boys who had gone to war," conservationist Lindy Bohrnsen said. You read the stories about them being gunned down at the landing (in Gallipoli). In one case there is a report of a soldier who was shot while trying to save a mate. He had a white flag up and he was still shot. It's a bit distressing to read that," she said. Digitising the material will allow the public to access the records more readily over the internet. About 500 photos have also been released and can be accessed through the Flickr social media platform. They are largely images taken before soldiers left for the war. The library's online projects manager Andrew Piper said it was hoped that by making the pictures available more information might revealed about people depicted in the images, especially those who remained unidentified. "In effect it could give someone their life back," he said. They will no longer be just a surname or a number in our catalogue. That's important to the family and it's important to our memory of what people from this city and state went through.