July-Caboolture Minutes - State Library of Queensland

Queensland Local Studies Group
Date and Time: 12 th July 2012
Venue: Caboolture Hub, Caboolture
Attendees:
Apologies
Kelly Ashford - Local History Officer, Pine Rivers
Karla Chisholm – Fraser Coast Libraries
Pat Gee – Moreton Bay Regional Council
Ruth Gardiner – State Library of Queensland
Jane Harding – Sunshine Coast Libraries
Carol Hawley – Sunshine Coast Libraries
Raylene Jensen – Scenic Rim Library Services
Rachel Lethem – Gympie Regional Council
Julanne Neal – Sunshine Coast Libraries
Kyla Stephan – Gold Coast City Council
Michelle Swales – State Library of Queensland
Amanda Wilson – Sunshine Coast Libraries
Di Warner – Sunshine Coast Libraries
Kate Harbison - Brisbane City Council
Jane Wassell – Queensland State Archives
1. Minutes of previous meeting
Minutes from the 17th April 2012 meeting were confirmed
2. Round Table update from members
Kyla Stephan – Gold Coast Starting to gather and anticipate requirements for the
Commonwealth Games to be held at the Gold Coast in 2018.
Anzac centenary coming up means that more grants are available and preparation has begun to
anticipate needs of local community and their commemorations.
Working with teachers to support the Australian History component in the new syllabus.
Had presence at Gold Coast Heritage Expo and Fair – very successful day.
Continuing regular work with school visits, community group visits, dementia and respite care
centre visits, and starting slide nights again in the library.
New program Graves on the Gold Coast – looks at stories behind lesser known burials – lone
burials not contained within cemeteries.
Near completion of the cataloguing of the map collection.
Contributed images for the movie ‘Kicking off the White Shoes: a series of stories about the
cultural revolution in the Gold Coast community’
Julanne Neal – Sunshine Coast Libraries Working through oral histories and them on to the
catalogue. Probably got most technical issues sorted out now.
Planning for 2014 Anzac events and already getting requests for assistance

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Local studies library now has a regular spot on the Sunshine Coast Facebook page. A new photo
connected with some local aspect goes in once a week on Fridays. Lots of positive feedback.
Starting regular pre-recorded spot with ABC local radio. Library gets to pick the topic.
Calenders have been very successful and will probably go ahead again for 2013.
Carol Hawley – Sunshine Coast Libraries Lots of local businesses and retirement homes
asking for photos at the moment.
Images have also been supplied for the Walk Buderim brochure which has been developed the
Sunshine Coast Council this year to celebrate the sesquicentenary of Buderim and its history.
The project includes a brochure and newly erected plaques highlighting some of the historic sites
in the town. The walk commences at the Old Post Office where the brochures can be collected
Karla Chisholm – Fraser Coast Very busy across all service points. Wikipedia training was very
successful. Also recent Ariadne training.
Local History Blog still being updated. http://fclibrarieslocalstudies.blogspot.com.au/
Supported Maryborough’s 150 th year celebrations.
Jane Harding – Sunshine Coast Libraries Business as usual. At Noosa branch - plenty of work
with Friends of the Library. Keen to do oral histories and the Friends group is happy to purchase
their own recording equipment.
Another volunteer is working on the clipping service and is building databases and indexes for
the library.
Amanda Wilson – Sunshine Coast Libraries Has been seconded to Cultural Heritage where
she is working on the 160 Characters initiative. Currently working on two heritage listed houses:
Bankfoot House and Pattemore House (Fairview)
Di Warner – Sunshine Coast Libraries Di is jobsharing with Amanda at Noosa and is working
heavily with Picture Sunshine Coast
http://www.library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/sitePage.cfm?code=picture-sunshine-coast
Had a successful day at the Pomona Heritage Festival
The Ma and Pa Bendall collection curated by Craig Baird and on loan from Surf World Torquay is
now at the Surfworld Museum, Gold Coast.
Rachel Lethem – Gympie Successful Wikipedia day with SLQ.
Beth Wilson is now the Local History Officer at Gympie.
Working hard on the Gympie Regional Heritage Trail to be launched this week. Covers all state
heritage listed buildings and regional centres. Good partnership exercise.
http://www.gympieheritagetrails.com.au/
Gympie Railway Station – no longer a functioning service but lots of history. DERM came to talk
about it and have started recording talks such as this to hopefully have on the website. The
history of the train features heavily in a new novel ‘Union Jack’ heavily researched in the Gympie
local history collection.
Whole of council to get a new website in six months and local studies will be part of the facelift.
Queensland Local Studies Group July 2012

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Ruth Gardiner – State Library of Queensland Wikipedia training – talked about the
partnership with Wikimedia Australia and the training in regional areas. She reported that the last
sessions had been particularly successful with most articles being published ( from Hervey Bay
and Gympie sessions) Unfortunately, Wikimedia is now focusing on other states and SLQ is
hoping that they will be able to continue the training but in a much smaller way, and only to areas
close to Brisbane.
Distributed collection – Ruth talked about the vision of SLQ to build a distributed collection of
Queensland memory across all communities and organisations eg clubs, associations,
community museums, private collectors, libraries, art galleries and so on. The aim of the
distributed collection is to raise awareness of collections and make them accessible and findable.
Wikipedia is one way of making local histories available to the rest of the world, as well as PQ or
Flickr or Historypin.
Local studies – Ruth spent a few days immersed in the Gold Coast Local Studies Library at
Southport, and later attended the Heritage Expo.The outreach the staff do is endless and the
community contacts and networks are ever expanding. Plans to visit other libraries with strong
local studies collections is ongoing.
JO Blog http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/ – the JOL blogs receives up to 10,000 hits a month. The
SL is keen to add guest bloggers to the blog. Ruth encouraged everyone to send stories to
Queensland Memory (through Ruth ruth.gardiner@slq.qld.gov.au) and we will be happy to add.
These can be on anything – from promoting an upcoming event or an interesting local story.
Naidoc – SLQ supports NAIDOC at West End’s Musgrave Park every year. This year we pumped
up helium balloons all day and ran story telling sessions, drawing and craft for the littlies, gave
Tindale advice and other library advice.
Tindale – it is now possible to search the Tindale indigenous genealogy database on One
Search. If you are having problems using this, please contact Visitor Experience on 38407810, or
Ask a Librarian website at http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/Services/ask
John Oxley Library Awards - the winners of these awards were announced in June on the same
day as the John Oxley Library Open Day. They were - John Oxley Library Award - Filmmakers
Sean Gilligan and Adrian Strong won the award for their documentary Fantome Island.
John Oxley Library Community History Award – This was presented to the Cardwell & District
Historical Society for its efforts to record the events of Cyclone Yasi, despite its own museum
being destroyed by the cyclone.
John Oxley Library Fellow - Don Watson is the 2012 John Oxley Library Fellowship recipient. His
Fellowship research project aims to make a valuable contribution to local architectural history by
extending his previously published research Queensland Architects of the 19th Century: A
Biographical Dictionary into the 20th century.
Tuesday nights with our Myles! Each Tuesday night after 9pm on ABC Local Radio Queensland,
the State Library’s Myles Sinnamon looks back at events that have shaped Queensland’s history
with host Rebecca Levingston. The podcasts of these talks can be located on the JOL blog at
http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/
Michelle Swales – State Library of Queensland . Michelle promoted the new Public Libraries
pages which includes the new Local Studies page. This page now includes all minutes in .pdf
form. http://plconnect.slq.qld.gov.au/networking/groups-and-networks/local-studies-group
Queensland Local Studies Group July 2012

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Michelle also added her thanks to the libraries that had taken up the Wikipedia offer. Please visit
the project page on Wikipedia to see the range of articles and their progress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/SLQ
Raylene Jensen – Scenic Rim Currently updating council website
Underway with “Main Streets” project The Main Streets Project is a digital literacy project that
aims to empower the community to create interactive, online heritage trails of the main streets in
towns and villages in the Lockyer Valley and Scenic Rim regions of Queensland. The project is
funded by State Library of Queensland Digital Literacy Grant and is facilitated collaboratively by
library staff in Lockyer Valley and Scenic Rim. Hopefully will capture images and stories.
Community map so anyone can contribute. Had first session at Mt Tambourine with six Ipads and
local seniors really enjoyed it.
Pat Gee – Moreton Bay Regional Council Enjoying being in the new Hub and having access to
all the modern facilities.
Preparation underway for WWI events. Have one keen volunteer collecting names off all honour
boards in the region and if they died in battle, where they died. Creating a really good collection
of names now being entered into spreadsheets.
Have hired a consultant to assist with the new school curriculum. Most requests are for pioneers.
“Then and now” concepts are so good for school children.
New website has a good local history presence.
Sent team of photographers to old ruins at George Raff plantation to capture the undisturbed
remains before weather or development impact on the site further.
3. Other business:
• It was suggested that the group should minute more than just the round table section of
the meetings so that those who cannot attend have a more accurate report of what was
covered at the meeting. All agreed.
It was decided that from next meeting – full coverage of guest speakers will be included in the
minutes and the host organisation will be responsible for the minute taking.
• A question regarding hashtags was put to the group. As yet – no one at the meeting is
archiving hashtags from Twitter. If anyone has any information can they please post to the
list localstudies@lists.slq.qld.gov.au
• Before we commenced our Local Studies meeting last week at Caboolture, Pat Gee gave
us the sad news that well known local historian Leith Barter had died earlier in the week
after a long struggle with cancer. He was an extremely respected and knowledgeable
member of the Queensland Local Studies Group, and will be missed in the Pine Rivers
area in particular, where he worked as the local historian for many years, and continued
with his passion into retirement.
Next meeting: 20 September – Queensland State Archives, Sunnybank Hills
Queensland Local Studies Group July 2012