Current News

Pacific Research Archives

Pacific Archivist Karina Taylor has acquired the following collections for the Pacific Research Archives:

• Tapes and field diaries of Professor Roderic Lacey from research on the Enga in Papua New Guinea, 1970s
• Digital images of Ocean Island (Banaba) from a number of donors
• Colour slides of food production in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, 1960s, taken by dietitian Nancy Hitchcock

Pacific journals from the collection of Professor Gerard Ward are available for reference in the Archives reading room:

• Journal of Polynesian Society, 1955-1994
• Pacific Islands Monthly, 1961-1968
• Pacific Studies, 1979-1999

 A number of Pacific researchers have responded to an invitation to deposit their collections in the Archives. With the support of our partners, the ANU Pacific Centre, the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, the ANU Library and the National Library of Australia, important collections of Pacific research materials will become available to scholars in the future.

Exhibitions

Material relating to the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited's involvement in sugarcane growing and milling in Fiji from 1881 to 1974 is on display in the Menzies building. The contents of the exhibition have been digitised and will feature in an online exhibition.

Photographs from the Archives are also on display in the following exhibitions:

• Max Dupain on Assignment, National Archives of Australia, Canberra

• Sydney's Pubs: Liquor, Larrikins and the Law, Justice and Police Museum, Historic Houses Trust, Circular Quay, Sydney

Presentations

Archivists Margaret Avard, Dr Pennie Pemberton and Maggie Shapley attended the National Archives' family history day, 'Shake Your Family Tree'. The album of photographs of Canberra in the late 1940s (also online), produced in multiple copies to attract overseas academic staff to move to the new Australian National University, was popular. Many visitors recognised the schools, shops and other buildings featured to reassure prospective employees of the facilities the national capital offered at the time. Two new guides for family history research in the Noel Butlin Archives Centre and the University Archives were prepared and have been added to the website.

University Archivist Maggie Shapley presented two sessions at the recent UNESCO International Memory of the World Conference in February. She spoke about what it has meant to the Archives to have one of our major collections, the records of the Australian Agricultural Company, listed on the Australian Memory of the World Register. The second presentation at the Preservation Planning workshop at the National Archives concentrated on the measures that a small archives can take to ensure the preservation of its collections.

At the Fenner School of Environment and Society's recent symposium 'The Future of the Past', Maggie Shapley spoke about records of the pastoral industry that the Archives holds, including records of pastoral stations throughout New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Records relating to past land use and climatic conditions are becoming increasingly popular as first-hand evidence of changes to climate and landscape.

Additions to the Noel Butlin Archives Centre

Recent donations and acquisitions include:

• Director's reports of the Scottish Australian Investment Company Ltd, 1840-1870, from Trent University, Ontario, Canada

• Diaries and files of Alexander Roby, Managing Director of metal smelter and alloy manufacturer, OT Lempriere and Company Ltd

• Papers of Professor Marian Sawer on the removal of the marriage bar on women in Commonwealth employment 

• Research material of Liz Ross relating to the Builders' Labourers Federation

• Images of properties owned by the New Zealand and Australian Land Company donated by Bob and Yvonne Webster

• Minutes and correspondence of the Tasmanian branch of the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union and predecessors

New acquisitions for the University Archives

• The Grant of Arms to the University issued by the College of Heralds in 1954

• Minutes and agenda papers of the Research School of Social Sciences Faculty Board, 1966-2005

• Master set of the student publication Woroni, 1954-2006

• Student course materials from the Faculty of Law, 1988-2006

• Reports and papers of the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing, 2000-2007

• Research papers of Dr Nigel Wace, former head of the Department of Biogeography and Geomorphology

A major documentation project on the University Archives has been completed, with information and item lists compiled for over 300 series of records. The largest series at 200 shelf metres is the Central Files multiple number series which ran from 1950 to 2000 and includes records of the Canberra University College back to 1930. The updated List of Holdings is arranged by the creator of the records, either a University organisational unit or a person, and is available on the Archives website.

Past news

For past news of the Archives please follow these links: October 2007, March 2007 and 2004-2006.