Blogtrails: Liz Holcombe

Australian War Memorial Liz Holcombe talks about blogtrails and the infinite possibilities in exploring online collections. Liz is one of the CAN Outreach Blog regular contributors. On Mondays guest writers from galleries, libraries, archives and museums share their experiences, challenges, triumphs and ideas with the CAN community. If you would like to submit an article to the Outreach Blog, please email CAN Outreach.

Fiona Hooton’s post two weeks ago about ‘trail blazing’ got me thinking about how museum blogs can carry out a similar role. They can create paths into and through collections, putting together things in – sometimes – wholly unexpected ways. While blogs are not the only way to do this, they do have advantages over some more traditional methods: they do not take as long to create as an exhibition or even an article in print publication, they can focus on one small object or brief story, and, perhaps most appealing of all, can be about whatever the writer is passionate about and/or working on. They have other advantages too: they can group together things from different collecting organisations, and the writing of them can fit in with the work the writer is already doing.


‘Group portrait of the Victorian Navy Band’, HMVS Cerberus and the naval bridge, Naval Historical Collection, National Maritime Museum, 1898.

A terrific example of this trail blazing is a post by Dave Earl on the Australian National Maritime Museum’s blog. Dave starts his post, which is called On and off the HMVS Cerberus explaining that he has been “researching the museum’s collection of naval small arms. One of the attractions of this project has been following the lives and careers of the seamen who owned used the objects I’ve been examining.” Dave uses images from the Australian War Memorial, the National Archives of Australia, the Australian National Maritime Museum, the State Library of Victoria and a satellite image from Google to tell his stories of some of the men and objects associated with HMVS Cerberus. The post demonstrates beautifully not only the work that Dave is doing, but the sources he uses, the collections that hold relevant objects and images, and we hear Dave’s own voice in the process.

There are some excellent examples too in the Australian War Memorial’s blog. A recent post by Paul Taylor shows very elegantly how one little object, not especially significant in and of itself, can be a marker on a trail with many branches. His post is called The girl on the badge, and in it, he connects Government employment policy in the Second World War, CSIR (now CSIRO), food preservation, Miss Plunkett (I wish there was more about her), Miss Joan Sutherland, and the Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, and uses images to illustrate his post. Paul, like Dave, was making his work public: he was doing this work anyway, and was so interested in the story that he shared it. Perhaps one day the badge will appear in an exhibition, but it is not likely that the entire story will be included.


AWM’s Di Rutherford regularly shares the work she is undertaking. Recent examples are the second of the two part series on the German camouflage tree, called Can’t see the tree for the wood… part II, the Baumbeobachter and one on flying boots called These boots are made for walking. In both posts Di makes use of images she has taken, as well as collection images, to illustrate her post, and the results provide an unusual and fascinating perspective of objects we would normally not see in this sort of detail (in fact, it is fair to say that the primary intention of both was to not be seen).

There are two more posts on our blog that I would like to mention, as they show another way of shedding light on collections and the interests of curators. Annette Gaykema wrote a post called Making a silk postcard, in which she not only demonstrates how she made the card, but what she learnt from the experience. Di Rutherford’s post called How to make a POW escape map, gives us step-by-step instructions to create a map, like those made by World War II prisoners in Europe, using stuff you can find in your kitchen. Both posts use collection items as the starting point, and both demonstrate ways of learning more about them.


‘Australia For Ever’, Embroidered silk postcard made in France during the First World War, 1914-1918.

Two other Australian museum blogs have caught my eye recently. One is From the loft… from the Justice and Police Museum. The post from 26 June called The Loft really appealed to me, as it shows just what many collecting organisations deal with. The images of the collection stored in the loft in 2006 on towering wooden shelves, with dim lighting, made me remember being excited and overwhelmed when confronted with a large mass of material that needs caring for. The before images contrast wonderfully with the after, and a little part of me secretly prefers the wooden shelving for its romance. The larger and more practical side of me much prefers the new loft, with its proper shelving, light and decent working space which keeps the collection and staff safe. The other I have noticed is about the care of living collections at the Melbourne Museum. It is called Live Exhibits Blog. The posts point to some of the challenges faced by those looking after animals and plants: finding the correct sized branches for the chameleon, walking the line between letting the bower bird build a display and protecting the plants he favours, and how the museum is playing its part in keeping a plant from going extinct.

All of the posts mentioned here talk about the collection that their writers care for and research. They provide views of objects and ideas that may not otherwise see the light of day, but which are nonetheless interesting, and not just to me: the comments show that others agree. They can fit in with work already underway, and they do not have to be about big, bold projects. Small and simple – better sized sticks for ageing reptiles – can be just as appealing. The best thing about all the posts I have mentioned here is that they show how trails can be made to highlight collections and how disparate things can be fashioned into great stories.

If you would like to share other interesting blogs with the CAN community, post a comment. Email Liz Holcombe, if you would like to chat with her about social networking around online collections.

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