National Archives of Australia
Exhibitions
Tuning In – ABC TV 1964-76 was on display in the gallery space at the National Archives of Australia during April and May. Sally Kneebone assisted curators in the selection and prepared original objects for display.
Items included original drafts of the ABC logo, viewer’s letters applauding and protesting ABC content and an original pressing of Countdown’s Silver Jubilee edition Australian Top 20 album.
Conservator Suellen Bailey is currently in Geraldton installing the Without Consent – Australia’s past adoption practices travelling exhibition. Suellen is also assisting in the installation of Faith Fashion Fusion—Muslim Women’s Style in Australia from the Powerhouse Museum. The show officially opens on Thursday 26th May.
NAPF relocation
As we all find out when the time comes to move to a new home, we need to look at years of accumulated objects. Luckily due to good policy, the majority of the objects we are moving are to be retained permanently. As the NAPF (National Archives Preservation Facility) rehousing team work their way through the repository areas, they have focused on preparing items for relocation to the new facility. Some items simply need to be placed into standard type boxes, others require custom housing to be created and many require descriptive work before any preservation work can begin.
The team identified 7800 items that previously did not have adequate housing and/or required stabilisation for safe relocation. Conservator Caroline Milne, Pres assistants Steve Willett, Ruth Bergman and Caterina Agostinetto have spent the past 6 months surveying, identifying, treating, measuring, creating housing for and problem solving packing solutions for these items. To date 1600 items have received custom rehousing by the NAPF rehousing team. The Kongsberg 22XL box making machine has been running hot for the past few months!
Some of the strangest things that have been uncovered during the survey are an 8ft tall novelty “Happy Birthday Australia” card circa 1988 (actually two wooden internal doors hinged together), huge brown paper packages (large enough to smuggle a small person in) tied up with string, a large fragment of metal the size of skateboard, and the odd estray. I’m sure there is a song in there somewhere…
Research Projects
Conservator Travis Taylor has been collaborating with Maja Kostadinovska, Conservation Laboratory St Clement of Ohrid Library, Skopje, Macedonia, on research relating to fibre identification through FTIR.