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 Dr Sigrid McCausland, University Archivist (ph: 02 6125 2219 or email Sigrid.Mccausland@anu.edu.au).
Donations are placed in the ANU
Endowment for Excellence for the Noel Butlin Archives Centre, can only be
used for that purpose and are eligible for tax deductibility. You can either
make a gift now, or make a gift for the future through a bequest in your will.
Further information on the Endowment can be obtained from Mr Bruno Yvanovich,
Executive Director, Endowment (ph: 02 6125 3024 or email: Bruno.Yvanovich@anu.edu.au
).
The ANU Archives Program has been able to undertake the following projects thanks to support from the public and private sectors.
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:
The volumes are extremely fragile and cannot be used in their present state without causing permanent damage. The work is being done in stages, with the transcription of the three volumes as the first stage. This will be followed jointly by conservation work on the volumes and a publication either in book or electronic form.
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.
The Australian Trade Union Archives Project will build 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 is to update and transfer the data in Parties to the Award (published by NBAC in 1994) to electronic form.
The project is funded 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 contributes expert knowledge and information from its extensive finding aids and expertise.
The Canberra Tradesmen's Union Club has funded a special project to be undertaken by the Centre in 2002. The project will see the construction of a photographic database (with web interface) of the photographs and images held by the Noel Butlin Archives Centre. The NBAC has approximately 20,000 individual photographs, albums and illuminated addresses dating from the 1880s to the 1990s, covering social and cultural events as well as labour and business activities.