Mallala Museum News

“About time” open day a success despite the rain

mallalamuseumnews — Fri, 27 May 2011 06:13:32 +0000

The committee held another successful open day on May 22, with around 70 people braving the elements to visit the museum. The weather held off for most of the afternoon. Visitors enjoyed the films showing in the old school room, a demonstration of sheep shearing, while upstairs, the old gramophone was playing, and treadle sewing machine made hems.
Afternoon tea was the usual wonderful country spread, with homemade cakes, sandwiches, biscuits to tempt any palate.

The River Light in South Australia – September 2010

mallalamuseumnews — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 00:55:39 +0000

Water flowing under the Wasleys Road bridge east of Mallala

Due to the good rains in the catchment zone, the water in the River Light is flowing through the District Council of Mallala area.

The Rockies Reserve – A spectacular sight in September 2010

mallalamuseumnews — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 00:34:55 +0000

How exciting! The deafening sound of water pouring over the rocks at the Rockies Reserve in the River Light S.A.

A Milestone

mallalamuseumnews — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 00:21:59 +0000

It is the 1st Birthday of the Mallala Wiki “nowandthen” site on the 15th September 2010. Since the launch of the Museum wiki there are now approximately 200 articles telling the Mallala stories.
It has been an intrepid journey from being chosen for the pilot project to the benefits and the interaction of people discovering and using the site.
One such example is the dialogue which was initiated when a person living in New South Wales had discovered the Museum’s wiki and made contact about an inscription on a chair. The dedication noted that the chair was a gift to the parents of F.Cullen in memory of their son, who had died in WW1. A photograph of F.Cullen in WW1 army uniform was sent to the enquirer.
An added bonus was redirecting attention to a chair displayed in the upstair gallery at the Museum. The inscription on that chair informs the item was a gift to the parents of R.A.Lindsay who had been killed in WW1.

Updates to the Galleries

mallalamuseumnews — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:57:02 +0000

The Museum benefits from the interest and generosity of the community with relevant items, photographs and information arriving and adding to the collection. The members are always delighted to receive these gems from the past. Changing the displays means something new and of interest can be continually discovered in the galleries.
The Institute stage area at the Museum has been cleared of the items that were on the display for the special celebrations that highlighted “The 75th Anniversary of the Amalgamation of the three Councils”. The focus on gathering the information encouraged a cooperative venture for the Council and the Museum personnel. The extent of the research has led to a comprehensive collection of amazing finds that will be there for all to share and enjoy.
The entry display at the Museum now highlights the weights and measures equipment which was used by Council to check that local businesses had accurate measurements in the conduct of their enterprises.
It added another highlight when Don Pitt and Rosemary Jenkin recalled the use, cleaning and storage of the items.
A display case in the Time of Conflict Gallery now houses a WW2 nurses uniform. The process of cataloging the items and fitting the mannequin has been well worth the effort. The positioning of the various bits and pieces of uniform was challenging and highlighted the need to have an eye for detail.
There is always something to discover.

Mallala Museum news letter

mallalamuseumnews — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:30:42 +0000

Click the photo to enlarge.
The railway went through Mallala in 1917 and from that time on until the mid 1980s it was the hub of the community providing transport for people and goods and employment for many.

The latest news letter has been printed and is being distributed to the “Friends of the Museum”. If you do not receive one in the post you can collect a copy from the museum.
An interesting photograph of personnel stationed at Mallala in the 1940s was displayed. The museum committee is seeking additional information and photographs relating to the railway at Mallala. Many people were employed by the railway in a variety of areas and were housed in the town. Photographs and information pertaining to any of these occupations would be of interest and add to the collection.

Mallala on the Web?

mallalamuseumnews — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 01:07:08 +0000

Mallala Museum has been on a steep learning curve over the past couple of years as it has embraced the opportunities of the internet to promote the museum and to develop its collection.
The museum has enabled a variety of Web 2.0 components that each provide specific functions and benefits to the way the museum communicates. Our three Blogs (including this one) feed the ‘now’ component of our NowandThen wiki.
Our wiki website, whilst certainly raising the profile of the museum, has also enabled a true two way communication, between visitors to the site and the museum volunteers. New stories have been added by visitors, and museum generated content has been expanded, through the collaborative medium of the wiki.
Our Flickr photo storage site has complimented the wiki, by delivering the images that bring the wiki articles to life. The establishment of the Flickr site has also triggered the development of procedures and policies about online image access, and the change in mindset that evolved to deal with issues about ‘ownership‘ and ‘giving our images away‘ online.(All images on our Flickr site are in the public domain and distributed as Creative Commons, Non Commercial, Attribution licenced).
The committee is also embarking on a digitising project to make the rest of its document and image collection suitable for online access, and this ongoing project is the direct result of our learnings from the wiki experience.
Associated with the wiki is a YouTube page, that the museum uses for linking video to the Flickr site. We only have a few videos on YouTube, as we only have a small collection of video suitable for uploading. (Most of our film and video collection is restricted through copyright issues). We hope to expand the video material that can be placed online, and the local Primary School is keen to be involved in developing video content. This could be a really valuable exercise, and demonstrates the spin offs that arise, when you venture into new areas. We toyed with Twitter and Facebook, and these may also become part of our online experience in the future.
Of course, there is a penalty in this new direction, and that is the extra responsibilities that the museum takes on, in managing these various projects. It all takes volunteer time and energy, and these are always in short supply at the museum. However, we are always keen to persevere if we see something is benefiting the museum, and that is clearly the case with this initiative so far. We also see the possibility that the new technologies we are exploring, and the range of new tasks that this has generated, are a different skill set than the traditional museum volunteer brings, and so the projects deliver opportunities to attract volunteers from a different demographic with IT skills, who are perhaps less interested in the cleaning, cataloging and visitor services tasks traditionally offered to our helpers.

Wiki humming along

mallalamuseumnews — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:54:26 +0000

Its been a while now since the Mallala Museum launched its wiki, nowandthen, and it has continued to go from strength to strength. The number of articles continues to increase, more comments and contributions are regularly being added. The associated Flickr image storage site is also continuing to grow, as the museum outs more of its photographic collections online. All images are Creative Commons, Attribution, Non Commercial licenced, which means that anyone can download the images for personal non profit use. Its all a part of making the wonderful stories told in our museum, more accessible to the wider community.
Of course, the experience of actually visiting the museum can’t be replicated online, so if your passing through the township of Mallala in South Australia, we would love to show you around. In the meantime, visit the wiki or our Flickr gallery.

Mallala Museum enters 2010 ABC Regional Awards

mallalamuseumnews — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:40:59 +0000

The Mallala Museum has again entered the annual ABC Regional Museums Award. Lasy year Mallala was judged the SA finalist and runner up for the national award.
This year there are three categories:

Best volunteer-run museum
Best small museum (with a total budget of $150,000 or less)
Best Indigenous Cultural Centre/Keeping Place

Mallala has entered the best volunteer run museum category.

We all have our fingers crossed for a good result again this year.

Mallala Museum Strategic Plan

mallalamuseumnews — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 14:11:44 +0000

The Mallala Museum committee is undergoing a review of its strategic plan. The previous plan has now expired, and proved to be very successful, with considerable development of the museums display space, interpretative materials, policies and procedures undertaken.
The new plan will be released shortly, and should guide the committee forward for the next few years, delivering improvements to our volunteer structure, and opportunities for additional funding.
Helen Smith has had the task of preparing the plan, and the draft will be considered by the committee at our next meeting on April 14th. 2010.
When it is finalised, the main strategies will be included here on the blog.