Volunteers give plenty

Press, 23 February 1989, Page 13

Volunteers give plenty

By

JOSIE LAING

Achievements at the Canterbury Museum are considerbly enhanced by the help of volunteer workers

It is sometimes necessary for them to be knowledgeable in specific subjects whilst others learn on the job. One large group of volunteers initiated in recent years is the museum guides. An intensive training programme includes instruction on all display galleries by the curators and education officers. Reading matter is suggested so that their knowledge can be extended.

The library would have great difficulty in helping the many people who come in search of their family histories if volunteers had not been willing to index various lists held in the museum’s archives or other relevant sources.

During the last year volunteers have filed catalogue cards, sorted newspaper and short articles, filed and catalogued family histories and other family information, checked shelved books with the card catalogue, completely reshelved the large store of journals, and indexed various archival lists on to card or computer. Lucille Ayers worked three days weekly for some months to gain an insight into library work, before obtaining work in a library and going on to Victoria University’s school of librarianship. Brian Lovell-Smith, a retired surveyor, has catalogued about 10,000 of the museum maps during the last eight years and has produced a published catalogue. This important collection for Canterbury research has since been catalogued and indexed. Julien Pettit has over the last few years- helped preserve these maps by cleaning, mending and encapsulating rare and fragile items in acid-free film. Pam Stewart spends on day each week indexing the death duty register and helping with tP ■ 7 '

filing and listing. Volunteer typists are very much in demand, and Ruth Fleming is typing the index to the North Canterbury land records of her late father, John E. Korrell.

In November, two young overseas visitors, Katie O’Connell and Steve Tope, asked if they could be of help and for six weeks both spent half of each day reshelving the entire journal store, a huge task which required not only physical but methodical work.

Deborah Gardiner recently offered 15 hours of help as her community work exponent of the Duke of Edinburgh Award, but stayed for two weeks to finish the job she began. Several members of the Riccarton group of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists have recently taken on an indexing project, the Lyttelton Ratepayers Rolls for the years 1864-1908. They attend for one morning each week and the results of their work are immediately available in the card catalogue. Each Museum Day the public streams in to make family history inquiries and these are answered by a loyal band of volunteers from the society’s Canterbury group. This group and its individual members have

often rallied to help with indexing work. In the prehistory department a consistent volunteer is Sally Burrage who has for the last five years worked almost full-time, continuing the work she had carried out before her retirement from the museum staff. In cataloguing the non-Oceanic anthropological collection (e.g. African, Egyptian, European) her extensive knowledge of the museum’s history of accessions is proving invaluable.

Two other volunteers in this department spend about 10 hours per week — Allan Forrester cataloguing current Oceanic but mainly Maori accessions, and Claude Hammond carrying out part of a preservation routine which is general housekeeping, dusting and any necessary repackaging in acid-free materials. Richard Pope, who has helped on many archaeological excavations over the years, is currently marking archaeological site records on to topographical maps, work which requires knowledge of site recording and map reading. Anita Barlass intends to take anthropology at university and has been helping the prehistory curator improve the storage of Maori cloaks and sort photographs of artetfacts in the collec-

Dozens of people have worked on museum archaeological excavations, participants often coming from far afield. Already this year a dig has been held at the site of the Kaiapohia Pa when the original gateway was located and excavated. Some volunteers follow up the digs by washing, cleaning and sorting the bone, shell and artefacts.

While cleaning material from the Fyffe moa hunter site in Kaikoiira, Mavis Emberson noticed types of small flaked flint tools not described in detail in the past, and she is now making a study of such items. With an M.A. (Hons) in prehistoric archaeology (Edinburgh) and a diploma in conservation from the University of London’s Institute of Archaeology, Mrs Emberson’s expertise is valued.

A secondary school pupil, Leo Kirby, has identified individual moa bones and assembled skeletons in the sub-fossil bones department. A most able computer programmer, he has prepared several data bases for that department, the library’s cataloguing programme and the liaison service.

In the geology department, Ann de Bode, an active amateur fossil collector, has for the last three years spent one full day a week sorting and recataloguing the large New Zealand fossil mollusc collection. Howard Keene, a qualified geologist, spends a half day per fortnight sorting the vast collection of

Canterbury rocks — cleaning, checking the identification, reboxing and labelling them. Preparing a catalogue of type fossils in the geology collection for publication as a museum bulletin was a university holiday job for Andrea Lobb who has-continued the work voluntarily.

Several volunteers have been working in the archives department. Ron Chapman has been working on the archives for some years and is presently compiling an index to the Canterbury Association Records, which has already been of considerable help to researchers. The records of the Canterbury Regiment Association are being sorted and listed by Guy Bliss. Both volunteers are former teachers with interests in local history, particularly in the areas in which they are working. Other volunteers work in areas in which they have special knowledge such as Margaret Millwood who has a background of work with an engineering firm and is sorting and listing the collection of engineering records of John Anderson, Ltd. A retired surveyor, George Wilson, has sorted and listed the papers of the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors, the centenary of which was celebrated last year. Rebecca LovellSmith is assessing local body records held in the museum, whilst Sharon Gottermeyer is transcribing shipboard diaries to make them more accessible to the public. Yvonne Queree, who has considerable dressmaking experience and an interest in costume,

stores and boxes costumes and textiles in acid-free tissue in the department of Canterbury history. Belinda Barclay, who trained in textile design, has encapsulated in mylar film early fashion plates and dressmaking patterns so they can be stored flat and handled by researchers without damage to the items. Collections of European ceramics have recently been packed and transferred to new storage areas and locations amended on catalogues by Tracy Tulloch, a university student of history interested in museum work as a career.

In the department of invertebrate zoology, professional volunteers use the museum collections and facilities to conduct research into areas in which the museum is specifically interested. John Ward is working on New Zealand caddis flies, a subject which until recently was the domain of Alec MacFarlane who spent over 30 years on such study. Shirley Rind is working on parasitology, especially the parasites which cause “duckage” (the itch experienced by swimmers in water frequented by ducks). At times, when relocation manpower is required, students from Christs’ College have been most helpful. Occasionally school children help in all areas of the museum, some for a period of a few weeks during a school holidays, sometimes in an area in which they hope to gain professional qualifications. Other pupils come in for work experience, usually for two days to one week.

Identification of moa bones