Cultural Collections at the University of Melbourne

Conference proceedings published as a CD Rom, ISBN 1 86295 246 9The University of Melbourne has been collecting cultural material since its foundation in the 1850s and now owns 27 identified cultural collections, which link the history, scholarship and identity of the University with research, teaching and public programs. Many of these collections and individual items are of high cultural and heritage significance. They include rare books, prints, maps, music, Australiana and other special materials held by several library branches; museums of visual art, indigenous cultures, classics and archaeology, medical history, dentistry, and anatomy and pathology; collections illustrating the history of academic disciplines and professions such as geomatics/surveying, physics and electrical engineering; natural history collections covering earth sciences, zoology and botany; as well as the Grainger Museum and the University of Melbourne Archives.In recent years the managers of these collections have been working collaboratively to raise awareness of their existence and significance both within the University and in the wider community; to encourage their use in teaching, research, publications and public programs; and to improve their standards of conservation, cataloguing, storage and staffing. This paper describes work undertaken and progress made to date, and discusses options being considered for the future of the collections to ensure that they are managed in a sustainable way which benefits the University community and the public.May 200