About the event

Date: 15 June 2018
Location: Supreme Court Library Queensland, Brisbane

Full day workshop with Lisa Jones, Curator, Queensland Police Museum.

In this workshop, participants heard how ‘significance’ is used to define the meanings and value of collection items through research and analysis. Throughout the day participants learnt:

• Why assessing significance is an important way of telling compelling stories about collections;
• How the process explores all elements contributing to meaning such as history, context, provenance, related places, and memories; and
• How the method goes beyond a conventional catalogue description to clarify the reasons an object is important and what meanings can be drawn from it.

The workshop showed collection managers how to make reasonable judgments about the importance of collection items, improve the conservation of object significance and make meanings accessible.

Participants were requested to bring one object per organisation for the significance assessment exercise, preferably with associated documentation.

About Lisa Jones

Lisa has more than 30 years’ experience in the museum sector. In 1997 she gained employment as Curator of the Queensland Police Museum where she currently works. Lisa has run a consultancy business since 1995 and enjoys being involved with, and remains connected to the broader museum industry, through her involvement with Museums & Galleries Queensland.

Acknowledgements

The Community Heritage Grants program is funded by the Australian Government through the National Library of Australia; the Ministry for the Arts; the National Archives of Australia; the National Film and Sound Archive and the National Museum of Australia.