Projects and Fundraising

Fundraising

The Noel Butlin Archives Centre is the centrepiece of the ANU Archives Program. The Program includes the ANU University Archives as a distinctly separate element. The Noel Butlin Archives Centre relies on community support as well as funding from the Australian National University.

This support contributes to the collection, preservation and study of Australia's business and labour history. Donations are used to undertake special projects, carry out preservation work on specific records and undertake work that is outside its operating budget. A list of special needs that you can support is available from Ms Maggie Shapley, University Archivist (ph: 02 6125 2219 or email Maggie.Shapley).

Special Projects

The ANU Archives Program has been able to undertake the following projects thanks to support from the public and private sectors.

Australian Agricultural Company

An anonymous donor has provided the Noel Butlin Archives Centre with funds to transcribe, publish and undertake conservation treatment on three volumes from the Australian Agricultural Company collection held at the Centre. The items are:

• Letter-book containing copies of letters sent by Commissioner Sir Edward Parry to officers of the Australian Agricultural Company and others in the Colony, 9 December 1829 – 8 March 1834 (Deposit 1/2B); and
• Letter-books containing out letters sent by the Commissioner Managing the Affairs of the Australian Agricultural Company in New South Wales to officials and others, 1829-1834 (Deposit 1/3B/1-2). In the back of the first volume is a register of births and baptisms on the Port Stephens Estate (1827-1831).

The first volume has now been fully transcribed and the second has had professional conservation work undertaken. Transcription work on the second volume has now begun and will be followed by publication in book or electronic form.

Australian National University Oral History Project

The Australian National University funded an extensive oral history project, which interviewed academics and administrators who had been prominent in the establishment or later development of the ANU and the Canberra University College. Between 1990 and 1995 approximately 43 interviews were carried out by Australian Heritage Projects. The project supported the writing of The Making of the Australian National University: 1946-1996 by S G Foster and Margaret M Varghese, published in 1996. The audio tapes, transcripts and paperwork generated by the project are now held by the University Archives within the ANU Archives Program. The University Archives has developed an extensive finding aid for the collection which is available the Archives.

Australian Trade Union Archives Project

The Australian Trade Union Archives Project is the first nationally accessible web gateway and finding aids linking historical detail, archival and heritage resources and websites regarding Australia's trade unions and peak union bodies from the nineteenth century onwards. A key component of the project was to update and transfer the data in Parties to the Award (published by NBAC in 1994) to electronic form.

The project was funded in 2001 by the Australian Research Council Research Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities Scheme (RIEF) and is hosted by the University of Melbourne Archives. As one of the two senior project partners, the NBAC contributed expert knowledge and information from its extensive finding aids and expertise.