Cultural Diversity and the Challenges of Access

Cultural diversity has become a key issue in the 1990s for a number of reasons. In the United States we have recently completed a census. The results of that census indicate a dramatic change in the nation's demographics.

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Repatriation of Papua New Guinea's Cultural Heritage

Jim Specht of the Australian Museum Sydney, has written that "public and private collections of archaeological and ethnographic specimens around the world contain tens of millions of specimens yet only a minute fraction of this total is actually held in its countries of origin" ; most of this material he says, was acquired through colonial or military occupation.

Barry Craig

European Museums Make an Exhibition of Themselves

Report on the 3rd International Salon of Museums and Exhibitions (SIME) at the Grand Palais Paris January 1992

Philip Wright

Towards the Light: The story of One New Age Gallery's Quest for Purpose and Relevance in a Changing World

On 23 October 2002, yet another Council of Australian Museums Associations (CAMA) ran down. Conferees were already half deep in thought about melting credit cards and distant work site desks stacked high with urgent files. Well Not exactly CAMA...

John Neylon

Museums and Technology: A Recession Boom?

With so many people feeling bruised and battered by the 1980s, it may seem cynical to point out that this unlamented decade also produced some new museums. These two 1980s legacies appear unrelated. On the face of it, museums are a quintessentially boom-time phenomenon, another emblem of 1980s extravagance.

Charles Pickett

Spirit of Enquiry Refreshing

Exhibition review Moet and Chandon Touring Exhibition Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Hobart 12 February - 22 March 1992 and touring

Sean Kelly

Background to the Project: Heritage Curricula and Multiculturalism (HC&M)

Background to the National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia with the final report to be released by the Office of Multicultural Affairs OMA in mid 1992. See also the article by Helen Andreoni in this issue.

Amareswar Galla

Bad Names Improved

Suggestions for renaming many cultural institutions which are ambiguously named.

Daniel Thomas

Museums Listings

Selected list of museums and art galleries around Australia.

Louise Dauth

Exhibiting the Museum

The recession led rash of public conferences on the theme of Australian identity raises questions about the sources of our national self-knowledge. The congregation of bureaucrats, economists, television personalities, writers and artists has a democratic ring to it but it also points to the failure of our cultural institutions - notably our museums, galleries and libraries - to embrace their responsibility to develop a regional self consciousness.

Paul Carter

To Have and To Hold: Art Museum Departments

One of the things which continues to fascinate me about museums is how, despite the vast amount of talk about displaying material culture, the often personal, often idiosyncratic, often haphazard decisions about departments are very rarely mentioned. Yet these decisions are central to much of the museum's collection, display, exhibitions and research programme.

Alison Carroll

Aboriginal People and Museums: Restricting Access to Increase It

The South Australian Museum has the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of Australian Aboriginal material culture. It also has a vast archive of information about that material and about other aspects of Aboriginal life in the form of photographs, films, audio tapes, diaries and other records.

Christopher Anderson

CAMA Conference: An Overview

Conference review CAMA Something for Everyone: Access to Museums held at the University of Adelaide October 1991.

Susan Tonkin

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