Cataloguing in Gippsland

Musings of a Cataloguer at Large in Gippsland. Just personal thoughts - absolutely no bearing on the thoughts of any organisation with which I am working.

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Location: Victoria, Australia

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Highlights from Today


It's impossible to run through all the activity that took place today - apart from everything else, there were parallel sessions, and there is so much I had to miss. So here are a couple of quick highlights:

Victorian Collections has been officially launched - above are Laura Miles, Executive Director of MA(Vic) and Peta Knott, Manager of Victorian Collections. Victorian Collections, co-incidentally, had a major upgrade at 3am this morning, and can now be found HERE. It is no longer beta, so please upgrade any bookmarks.

Amongst the first group of keynote speakers, on Human-Centred Disaster Response, was Dr Robin Hirst, who delivered a paper on behalf of Dr J. Patrick Greene of the Museum of Victoria. The image that will remain for me is that of a burnt-out FX Holden, which was acquired by the Museum - we are all so familiar with that first Holden that is in the collection, and recently saw the Prime Minister with it (or one very like it). It is an object going full circle, but in a way with totally different layers of meaning.

Bob Parker, Mayor of Christchurch, brought the disaster of the recent earthquake home to us in a personal way that we will long remember. As well, we may remember the way in which he was able to rig the most incredibly complex system (point that camera at my iPad, and put the roving mike next to it), to get this presentation to us. Yep - that is how we got to see it. And for those in an "unreinforced masonry building" (eg Stratford Museum), what he had to say was downright scary.

Sandra Bruce from the Post Office Gallery at Bendigo and Karlie Hawking from Albury Library Museum were full of interesting points. One in particular I am not giving away from Karlie (although I will do it slightly differently) - but will acknowledge Karlie when it happens. Karlie uses a lot of volunteers from the Albury Historical Society to catalogue photographs and items.

Bonnie Fagan introduced us to Registered Aboriginal Partnerships, which are there to help us navigate through the appropriate consultation process for, amongst other things, registration (and often identification), of indigenous items in local collections. More details HERE.


The conference venue is perfect - but bookings obviously had to close when all the seats in the theatre had been allocated. This conference has been needed for a long time - would be wonderful to have it annually, but finding a similar venue in other towns (with available accommodation), is going to be difficult.

First up tomorrow - Social Media & the Web in Museums. Excellent!

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