Becoming Queensland - digital story with Professor Anna Haebich

Collections Australia Network, CAN
This is an interesting case study from the Collections Australia Network, CAN, on "making/creating/curating family history', at the State Library, Queensland, SLQ. See here for the original post on the 14th July, 2009.

It appeals to me on a number of levels - not least the way it explores how scholarship can create an authoritative narrative using the personal memorabilia which comes to institutions like SLQ.

And in another example of museums and libraries, galleries becoming publishers and broadcasters, note the professionalism of the video interview - and their determination to reach a wider audience by going the YouTube route.

CAN Outreach Blog -
This broadcast thread is then nicely amplified by the CAN blog who recently picked it up and started a conversation on what is going here.

"What happens when the family album you are looking through is not your family and has no relationship to you? Is the story still interesting? More importantly, how do you read it when you know very little about the subjects and there is no text? Most people are used to looking at their own family albums and they already know the backstory.

Griffith University professor Anna Haebich created a digital story, during her time as the historian in residence at the State Library of Queensland, about two migrant families from the two main settler countries Britain and Germany. Anna knew very little about these families so decided to read the albums as they were texts. She says of the project: ‘I found a good story in each of the albums, but were the stories real or did I just invent them?’.
source - here

Queensland Stories
The CAN blog also reports, 'this project is part of the Queensland libraries exhibition Queensland Stories which tells stories of people, places, past present. The exhibition runs until December 31. It illustrates the state’s evolution, diversity and innovation since it became an independent state from NSW in 1859.'

If you can get to Brisbane, the albums are in the Heritage Collection Reading Room, at the State Library. Alternatively, go to the virtual exhibition Becoming Queensland on the State Library of Queensland website. It can also be searched on the library’s catalogue.