Gavan McCarthy's project examined how research into Tasmanian convict records can be reintegrated into archival management systems at the Tasmanian State Archives.
Historical research usually involves extracting information from archives. Often the research process adds contextual knowledge or detail to the raw archival data, but this knowledge is rarely fed back into the systems that describe and manage the archives. This project looked at how researchers and archives might work together to ensure that this knowledge is preserved in a useful and sustainable way.
Gavan McCarthy is a chief investigator in an ARC-funded project which aims to publish online the records of 75,000 men, women and children transported to Australia in the first half of the 19th century. The records will be digitised, and their contents transcribed into a machine-readable format. This will allow the development of a range of complex and interconnected databases.
The Ian Maclean Award enabled Gavan to consider how the data contained within these transcriptions might be used by the State Archives to enrich their own systems.
Gavan McCarthy is Director of the eScholarship Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. He was formerly director of the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre (Austehc) and is recognised as a world leader in the development of online archival systems.
Eileen Chanin and Steven Miller's groundbreaking project was to recover the neglected archival records of Australia’s art schools, so that researchers can piece together more of Australia's art history.
Early art training in Australia was conducted on a studio basis by individual artists, with some lessons run in mechanics institutes. The Artisan’s School of Design, founded in Melbourne in 1867, was the first public art school. Amongst the pupils and teachers were Louis Buvelot, Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts. Melbourne’s National Gallery School was founded three years later in 1870. These and subsequent art schools not only trained painters and sculptors, but were also places where actors, designers, writers, teachers, architects and artists intermingled during their formative years.
Chanin and Miller's project aimed to identify and locate valuable records of art schools around Australia and where and how they can be accessed. After the conclusion of their Ian Maclean Award they continue to order and store their research on a database, which will in time be made publically accessible through the web. You can read more about their work in our Memento magazine (Number 33 – Winter 2007).
Dr Nikki Henningham is a research fellow and Executive Officer of the Australian Women's Archive Project.
Dr Henningham used her award to locate records relating to the experience of migrant women in Australia and augment the existing holdings of official archival repositories. While women have had active roles in public life, quite often this work has taken place through professional and private networks that may not capture the attention of official archival repositories.
The project entailed detective work to track down valuable records hidden away in back offices, garages or even under beds. To locate records of these initiatives, Dr Henningham sought advice from people involved in community programs to assist migrant women at the local, state or national level.
Dr Henningham's labours have borne fruit – see the documentary history website Being Seen and Heard: Migrant Women Organising in Australia.
Bruce Smith's research improved the knowledge base upon which acquisition decisions can be made in business archives and helped identify which types of records should be targeted for collection.
A major driver of the website Guide to Australian Business Records, Bruce Smith is also an active professional member and past treasurer of the Australian Society of Archivists. He has lectured in Archives and Records Management at the RMIT in Melbourne since 1995. He is a member of the International Council on Archives (ICA) and has also been on the ICA’s steering committee of Business and Labour Archives since 2000.