Recently digitised: university wall calendars

To ensure the ongoing preservation of physical items in the Archives, digitisation provides an option to reduce handling of these objects as well as increases possibilities for access.

With excellent services provided by the Digitisation Centre of WA, we recently had the university wall calendars digitised. A calendar can be thought of as a somewhat ephemeral object, but the 1969-2023 collection shows a progression of the university’s priorities, services and style.

An interesting feature of the early calendars in our collection is that they are versions that were used by staff. Red pen marks, tears and pin holes are visible in the above 1969 calendar.

The first two years of the Institute’s calendars have not been found and so we are still looking for years 1967 and 1968 to complete the collection.

The 1974 calendar is the longest. Note the discolouration on the bottom section from a year’s worth of sun damage – it must’ve hung on the wall in a WAIT office that caught just the right amount of light through a window.

In December 1986, the Western Australian Institute of Technology was made a university, the third university in WA. The name change to ‘Curtin University of Technology’ after the former Prime Minister of Australia, John Curtin, is reflected in the 1988 calendar.

Note the dollar signs as the day of the week to indicate pay day in the 1992 calendar! This continued until the year 2000.

2010 is the beginning of a format and font that staff today will find familiar. Yearly themes are introduced.

The theme of 2017’s calendar is 50 years of innovation, marking our 50th year in tertiary education. A reminder, we would love to find the 1967 and 1968 calendars to complete this collection! Fingers crossed they are stashed safely in a cool, dry, dark place on campus, waiting to be discovered and transferred to the Archives.

From 2022 physical calendars were discontinued and digital PDF versions are provided. These will continue to be accessioned into the University Archives each year.