We got a present of a couple of children’s books from Australia and were intrigued to discover their relationship to the collections of the National Museum of Australia.
Making Tracks takes young readers on a fictional journey through some fascinating Australian stories, inspired by objects from the National Museum of Australia’s collection. The series is written and illustrated by leading Australian children’s authors and artists. [National Museum of Australia – Making Tracks]
While looking at the NMA site (“Nice bright colors, K….”) I was interested to discover reCollections, their journal. From the current issue, an article by Paul Arthur:
This paper surveys the digital history field — a broad field that is increasingly relevant to museum practice as museums experiment with digital modes of presentation and communication, including virtual exhibitions and other online extensions of the physical visitor experience. [reCollections – Papers]
In recent presentations, I have been suggesting that libraries will need to adopt more archival skills as they manage digital collections and think about provenance, evidential integrity, and context, and that they will also need to adopt more museum perspectives as they think about how their digital collections work as educational resources, and consider exhibitions and interpretive environments. I have used a capture of the home page of the Library at Oregon State University in this context, which showcases several digital collections. These currently include a resource about Linus Pauling and the peace movement which puts digitized materials in a broader context:
The three sections of Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement combine to provide an unusually rich source of information on Linus and Ava Helen Pauling’s remarkable body of peace work. Navigate between the sections by using the links on the site’s home page or by using the links at the top of any page within the site. [Introduction – Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement – Special Collections – Oregon State University]
