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Media Release

11 September, 2003

Shhhh … this is a library conference

If you think that archival libraries are silent, boring places where only scholarly-types hang out, where dust ridden boxes of ancient paperwork, diaries and maps are hidden in the bowels of the building - think again.

Archival libraries today are the home of cutting edge technologies which not only preserve our historical past, but put knowledge and history at the fingertips of the community, according to head Librarian of UniSA’s Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Library, Ms Jenni Jeremy.

And next week librarians, archivists and historians from all over the world will gather at the Famous People, Famous Collections Conference, 14 -16 September, 2003, hosted by UniSA, to discuss issues facing curators and librarians charged with the responsibility of looking after some of the world’s most famous and fabulous library and archival collections.

“Librarians today are not just custodians of paperwork, they are involved in marketing, interior design, fundraising and political lobbying all in the name of making their collections as attractive and accessible to as many people as possible,” said Jeremy.

Presented by the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Library, former Prime Minister Bob Hawke will open the conference, which will focus on the issues and challenges involved in developing person-specific libraries, archives and collections.

Keynote speaker, and director of the Cabinet War Rooms in Whitehall (the secret underground wartime headquarters of Winston Churchill), Phil Reed, says that such significant collections provide an historic site, which lives and breathes and gives a unique sense of passing back in time.

“As visitors walk through the same corridors as Churchill did in wartime, it is rare that I have found a first time visitor anything less than deeply affected by the atmosphere and massively impressed by the experience,” says Reed.

Other highlights of the conference include:

Graeme Powell, National Library of Australia
Were they worth it? Counting the cost of collecting personal papers for the National Library of Australia.

Jock Murphy, State Library of Victoria
Ned Kelly Now. The Jerilderie letter and the impact that the public’s interest in Kelly has had on the archives.

Dr Kym McCauley, Lecturer in information and knowledge management UTS
Private Conversations/Public Assess and the implications of new technologies on information gathering for famous collections.

Blanche d’Alpuget, Author and Biographer
The Dark Ages of Research. The contrast between researching for collections today and pre the age of information technology.

Full details of the program can be accessed online at:

http://www.hawkecentre.unisa.edu.au/library/conference/2003conference_home.htm

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