The Conservation team was recently tasked with the treatment of a silver cup that belonged to a prominent Tasmanian, with links to a historic French fraternity. Read on to find out more about this unusual item and how it has been conserved.
Continue reading “Conservation of a tastevin”Category: Conservation
Hidden figures: Tom Midwood, caricatures and Tasmanian Railway Records
Sometime in the 1990s it came to the attention of the National Archives (then responsible for Tasmanian railway records) that a large collection of railway plans was languishing in haphazard storage at the Inveresk Railyards in Launceston. Archivists were dispatched to investigate and encountered a chaotic situation. Records had been stored anywhere and everywhere, including stuck up a disused chimney! Many had been badly affected by the 1929 floods and by the incursion of soot from coal-fired steam engines. However, the collection was one of marvellous significance, documenting Tasmania’s railway infrastructure. The archivists made a case for the preservation of this collection and secured funding to perform the mammoth task of cleaning, organising and properly storing the recovered hoard. In the process they found something quite unexpected.
Continue reading “Hidden figures: Tom Midwood, caricatures and Tasmanian Railway Records”Recently Digitised Material
This blog features some of the recently digitised items from the Tasmanian Archives and the State Library of Tasmania. Each year, we place items online to help promote and preserve our rare and special collections. These images and films are just a tiny sample of an amazing treasure trove of Tasmania’s heritage. From colonial artwork to convict records, from fragile glass plate negatives to rare films, from private letters to government records, our collections (including the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts and the W L Crowther Collection) tell literally millions of stories from Tasmania and around the world.
Read on to find out more about our new additions to our digital collections! To discover even more, you can also search our catalogue or visit us on Flickr and YouTube.
In this blog:
- Glass Plate Negatives of Sea Captains, c1920 – Ref: NS6192
- Stereoscopic Views of the ‘Franklin Relics,’ 1860 – Ref: NS1155
- Mt Biscoff Tin Mine Photographs – Ref: NS6719
- Gentleman Jim, 1942 – Reference: Ref: NS4264/1/5
- Hobart High School Photos – Ref: AG162/1/6
- Charles Street School Register 1902-08 – Ref: AB753/1/1
- Return of Convicts Embarked for Port Arthur by the Ships Tamar, Isabella, Shamrock, and Lady Franklin (1834-1855). Ref: CON126/1/1
- Return of Money Forfeited by Prisoners at Port Arthur (1864). Ref: CON132/1/1
- Letter from the Colonial Secretary to the Commandant, Port Arthur (1834). Ref: CON86/1/2
- Film: Timber Makes News, 1947 – Ref: AC672/1/219
- Film: Les Skelly talking about Tiger Hill, 1986-9 – Ref: NS1391/1/1
- Film: Burnie Mill, 1956 – Ref: AC672/1/1
Collecting history as it happens – COVID-19 Stories campaigns across Australia
A Libraries Tasmania and TMAG partnership, COVID-19 Stories, is reaching out to Tasmanians to capture their stories and records of the pandemic. COVID-19 Stories is just one of many projects across Australia aiming to preserve memories of this historic time. Stories – big and small – are needed to fully record this story. With enough public input these wide-ranging projects will allow us to capture the diverse experiences of our community as we faced, and carried on through, a life-changing, worldwide pandemic.
The Conservation Treatment of CRO5/1/33
About 170 years ago, a prominent Hobart doctor made a series of anatomical drawings for local medical students. Dr Edward Swarbreck Hall’s stunning illustrations later ended up in the hands of his fellow medical practitioner, Sir William Crowther, who donated them (with the rest of his considerable collection) to the State Library of Tasmania. But the drawings were in poor condition, neglected for well over a century, and they needed urgent conservation treatment before they could be displayed. What follows is the story of how our conservator, Stephanie McDonald, brought one of the drawings back to life for Lauren Black’s new exhibition, A Complex Beauty at the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition will soon be available online as a ‘walk-through’ digital experience (in the meantime, you can check it out on Flickr). Read on to discover more!
Continue reading “The Conservation Treatment of CRO5/1/33”