Museums Australia (Victoria) Student Volunteer Program
Victorian Collections News
BELINDA ENSOR, MUSEUMS AUSTRALIA (VICTORIA)
MA (Vic) has partnered with Deakin University to match ten of
students with collections in Victoria to enhance their learning.
Cathy Mulcahy told Belinda Ensor about her experience during a
placement last year at Buda Historic Home in Castlemaine.
As part of our commitment to the sector,
the Museum Accreditation Program
along with Victorian Collections are
assisting to place ten Deakin University
Museum Studies student volunteers with
Victorian museums for short term
projects, to begin from mid June 2015.
For museum studies students, gaining
practical experience is an invaluable way
to cement learning and greatly
contributes to their future career.
In 2014, we tested the program out
with four students and Deakin University
Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies
student Cathy Mulcahy wrote of her
experience:
“Participating in the student volunteer
program organised by Victorian
Collections and Deakin University in 2014
enabled me to put skills and knowledge
gained through the Masters in Cultural
Heritage to work at my favourite historic
house museum Buda Historic Home and
Garden in Castlemaine (if you haven’t
been there yet, do go!).
The first part of the process involved a
training workshop on collection
management and cataloguing run by
Belinda Ensor from Victorian Collections.
It was a rewarding day at Museum
Victoria where we were given background
information and protocols for handling
and assessing the significance of
collection items as well as
photographing/scanning them and
cataloguing onto Victorian Collections.
House Manager/Curator Lauretta Zilles
supervised me at Buda, and it was
8
May – July 2015
inspiring to work with an innovative and
dedicated museum professional.
Experiencing ‘hands on’ work
cataloguing, while observing many other
aspects of collection and museum
management at Buda showed me the
numerous hats that a curator at a small
museum wears in one day.
Over ten days I became more and more
enthralled with the house and garden,
the treasures in the collection and the
fascinating Leviny family who lived and
worked there, creating art and practical
objects, as well as collecting art works
and participating in the cultural life of the
time in Victoria. I catalogued twenty
significant items from the Buda collection
onto Victorian Collections and felt a great
deal of satisfaction making a small
contribution to helping increase
community access to this much loved
home and collection in Castlemaine.”
If this initiative would be valuable to
your organisation, please get in touch
with Museums Australia (Victoria) to
receive more information about how you
can formally express interest in being
involved.
Belinda Ensor, Co-manager, Victorian Collections.
To express interest in the student placement email
Belinda at: [email protected]
Visit Buda at: http://victoriancollections.net.au/
organisations/buda-historic-home--garden
Visit Deakin at: http://www.deakin.edu.au/chms
Above: Cathy Mulcahy, Cameron Auty and Lauretta Zilles at
Buda Historic Home in Castlemaine in September 2014.
Throughout 2015 Victorian
Collections is rolling out a
series of workshops in
preserving and sharing
military memorabilia.
Victorian Colllections is running twelve
workshops around the state this year for
RSL staff and volunteers. The workshops
are jointly funded by Veterans’ Affairs and
Creative Victoria, with in-kind support
from RSL’s. The full day sessions will
cover exhibition planning, practical skills,
visitor experience, digitisation and
funding strategies. The Victorian
Collections training program for RSL
Sub-Branches provides training to ensure
that war-related memorabilia continues
to be preserved, photographed, digitised,
catalogued, and made accessible to the
public.
www.mavic.asn.au/services/victorian-collections/
workshops
State Parliament on Victorian
Collections
In April the Hon John Eren, Minister for
Veterans’ Affairs, mentioned the work
Victoria’s RSL Sub-Branches have been
doing on Victorian Collections in a
statement to the Victorian Parliament. Mr
Eren discussed the series of government
programs and initiatives relating to the
Anzac centenary that included Victorian
Collections.
www.anzaccentenary.vic.gov.au