ANU Intern signing off

When ANU Masters student (Museums and Collections Program) Katrina Marshall chose to undertake her Internship with us, none of us knew quite where this might lead. Now that her time working with us is almost over, it is clear that the Centre has benefited enormously from having Katrina with us for a while.

With plenty to choose from, Katrina opted to take up the two challenges of establishing a 'Family History Unit', and creating a catalogue of the Gillespie Collection. We now have a Family History Unit in a small room of its own, where we can collate the various kinds of information we have about Hall / Ginninderra's pioneer families – photos, maps, family trees, published family histories, and other documentation. While there is a file cabinet with hard copies of some of this material, the bulk of it will be stored on computer, along with a lot of other 'family history' resources.

Katrina's other task has been working with Ken Heffernan to complete a digital catalogue of the Gillespie Collection. Margaret Morris has catalogued the Collection's 1,698 books and 352 journals, and Ken has catalogued 8,241 stone artefacts; Katrina has been working through the rest of the Collection: "Most objects have an object number, brief description, account of their current condition and other details if available....the most delicate objects or those which may be prone to insects etc. have been noted handpicked carefully with acid-free paper".

Interesting questions have arisen along the way –'What do we do with a tin of bullets?'. Having spent many hours combing through dozens of boxes and files, Katrina now feels she has achieved some insight into the collectorl.

She tells us she has much enjoyed the experience of being part of a volunteer run community museum, and plans to stay in touch. She is also planning an oral history project which will involve spending some more time with us later this year. Well done and thank you Katrina!