2023 in the Curtin University Archives

Highlights of Curtin University Archives activities and project work this year include:

More digitisation

Curtin University’s partnership with the Digitisation Centre of Western Australia helped us digitise more of our history and special archives:

• 170 16mm films from the Melanesian Film Archive
• selected drawings from a special archive of Western Australian architectural drawings dating back to the early 1900s
• early WAIT Council meetings records
• 1000 35 mm negatives from the 1970s at WAIT
• history of nursing photographs to help celebrate 50 years of nursing at Curtin in 2024
• a selection of VHS and DVDs from the 1980s-2000s.

More engagement

We shared more archives stories and images through our webpage and the University’s social media channels. Popular items included:

• “The journey of the TL Robertson Library”
• The history and pride of queer activism at WAIT and Curtin
• Colour images from the 1990s reformatted from 35mm slides
• Black and white images reformatted from negatives and 35mm slides from the 1970s and 1980s. This era of food innovation, questionable fashion and interesting entertainment choices proved popular viewing. Our photo of the year is surely this gem:

More preservation

With your help, we preserved more of Curtin’s history:

• The Binar-1 team transferred artefacts and documents from the first of the Binar missions
• Curtin Information Management and Archives (CIMA) worked with Curtin Properties to transfer WAIT and Curtin building plans to the Archives. The drawings have ongoing use as these buildings are still in use. So far, we have accessioned and rehoused over 11,000 drawings of campus buildings (which can be digitised as needed).
• Graduations transferred a historical collection of regalia to the Archives.

Looking ahead to 2024

Next year Curtin will have an archival repository with temperature and humidity controls to preserve the University’s archival records and historical objects.  The repository will incorporate existing CIMA workspace, providing us with improved opportunities to preserve Curtin’s history.

We will also continue our digitisation work:

• early internal annual reports of Departments
• Gazettes, Reporters, CurtiNews and early Groks
• early executive committee records such as the Art Aquisition Committee
• more film, photographs, slides and negatives

We undertake these activities to help researchers, Curtin staff, students, alumni and the wider community have access to a unique administrative, academic, student and research record.