Exploring the global and local networks of national information system integration initiatives : a case study of national cultural collection integration from an actor-network perspective

Australian Museums Online (AMOL) was the earliest attempt to make Australia’s distributed cultural collections accessible from a single online resource. Despite early successes, significant achievements and the considerable value it offered certain groups, the project ran into operational difficulties and was eventually discontinued. By using Actor-Network Theory and analysing the global and local actor-networks, it is revealed that although the project originated from large, state museums, buy-in was restricted to individuals, rather than institutions and the most significant value was for smaller, regional institutions. Furthermore, although the global networks that governed the project could translate their visions through the local production networks, because the network’s underlying weaknesses were never addressed, over time this destablised the global networks. This case study offers advice for projects attempting to consolidate data sources from disparate sources, and highlights the importance of individual actors in championing the project.

Cultural heritage and development in South East Asia

This chapter discusses research undertaken into the developmental role of museums and heritage sites in Thailand and the Greater Mekong Subregion, a geographical area that also includes Cambodia, Laos PDR and Myanmar. It contextualizes an international project, the Lampang Temples Project, to explore the potential role that museums and heritage sites can play in place-based development work, particularly in an Asian context where sacred places are simultaneously valued by local members of the community and as desinations for religious pilgrims and international tourists. The discussion of the Lampang Temples Project is located within an understanding of the international discourse concerning the roles of museums in development, including those contributions to the discourse that have originated in the Asia-Pacific region. It is also situated within an understanding of the roles of international agencies and local governments in the promotion of programmes and infrastructure for the preservation of Buddhist heritage and the relationship of this development strategy with tourism. Furthermore, due to the participatory and observational experience of the authors in the Lampang Temples Project, the chapter also considers the issues involved in applying cross-cultural pedagogies to the management of cultural tourism sites, including UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The results of the Lampang Temples Project support the contention that colaborative training models and pedagogies can be adapted, provided that differing cultural contexts and suppositions are appropriately articulated and integrated. Further, it suggests that this type of collaborative approach to the management of cultural tourism sites has the potential to play an important role in Buddhist heritage development processes.

The genus Unixenus Jones, 1944 (Diplopoda, Penicillata, Polyxenida) in Australia

The penicillate genus Unixenus Jones, 1944 is widespread, with species found in Africa, Madagascar, India and Australia. Each of the two Australian species was originally described from single samples from Western Australia. In this study, collections of Penicillata from museums in all states of Australia were examined to provide further details of the two described species, to revise the diagnoses for both the genus and the species, and to better understand the distribution of the two species in Australia. In addition, two new species Unixenus karajinensis sp. n. and Unixenus corticolus sp. n. are described.

Education for a new 'museology'

This article provides a critical reading of a curriculum initiative in tertiary education designed to address students who are traditionally marginalised in the Australian tertiary sector. An argument is made that this curriculum approach with its emphases on authenticity, identity, agency and embodied learning addresses issues of the disjunct between access to knowledge, museums and cultural capital. The political work of this curriculum is situated in the new museology. The author draws on Ellsworth's sensation of learning to elaborate the contributions made possible by the curriculum Learning and teaching in public spaces to museum education and tertiary education.

The hermeneutics of transpacific assemblages

This paper introduces the hermeneutics of globalisation to venture beyond political and economic overdetermination. More specifically, I set out to inspect the interpretive complexity of the hermeneutics of transpacific assemblages, namely the surplus of interpretations in a transforming world, which entangles linguistic, cultural, historical and political dimensions in a complex web of negotiations. This paper sets the theoretical and methodological scene for future research on particular empirical realities. The ultimate goal outlined here is the development of an understanding, explanation and critique of actually existing transpacific assemblages as lived and interpreted phenomena. I conclude by introducing the theme ‘cultural heritage’ and its ongoing construction, deconstruction and reconstruction within and beyond museums to dissect the endless hermeneutic becoming, emerging and making of transpacific forms of life.

Contact zones, third spaces, and the act of interpretation

The conceptual understanding of museums as ‘contact zones’ has been widely appropriated in the museum literature and beyond. But the discussion lacks empirical insights into actual experiences: What does ‘contact’ mean for the person experiencing it? How is it lived, negotiated and contested? Drawing on a long-term narrative study of global visitors to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa), this paper offers an empirical interrogation and theoretical refinement of the ‘contact zone’. It moves beyond the more usual focus on museological production by shedding light on the meanings made by museum visitors. This paper augments current normative and theoretical approaches with an ethnographic study of processes of intercultural mediation during cross-cultural encounters, translation and dialogue. This is done through a hermeneutic analysis of visitors’ acts of interpretation that facilitates an understanding of ‘cultural action’ in ‘contact zones’ as an interpretive ontological endeavour of the shifting Self within a pluralist cosmopolitan space.

Testimony, memory, and art at the Jewish Holocaust museum, Melbourne, Australia

Taking its cue from Charlotte Delbo’s powerful writing about the Holocaust in which she highlights the role of sense memories, this chapter begins with the proposition that sense memories – as distinct from narrative or vicarious forms of memory – are a particularly effective vehicle for the communication of past trauma in the present. The paper explores the potential value of this proposition for the display of objects in a Holocaust museum which are given meaning by the voices of the survivor community and their focus on the importance of testimony. The chapter undertakse an analysis of how the sense memories of survivors animate specific objects on display, exploring the ways in which these objects help the Museum to create a bridge between the survivor community and the wider general public (Auerhahn and Laub, 1990). I argue that built into that process there is a requirement that audiences listen in a manner that makes them a witness to past traumas. This listening process, I want to argue, offers not only an opportunity for healing on the part of survivors but also, following Simon (2005), the exchange of a ‘terrible gift’. That gift, I will suggest, places the visitor as a witness to past traumas and builds an ethical request that they should actively work against future genocides. Central to that possibility, I want to argue, is the way in which the process of witnessing a sense memory is an affective experience for the viewer leading to the potential production of empathy.

Exhibit review : Focus on strangers: photo albums of World War II, Stadtmuseum, Jena, Germany, 2011

Focus on Strangers: Photo Albums of World War II is based on a collaborative research project conducted by two German universities (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg and Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena) and was conceptualized in cooperation with four German city museums in Oldenburg, Munich, Frankfurt, and Jena. While the exhibition continues a tradition of museological projects examining Germany’s war history, such as the Wehrmachtsaustellung, which provoked fi erce public debate, Focus on Strangers moves beyond most conventional approaches in a signifi cant way. Th e exhibition pays tribute to the recent development in which private traces of memory have become part of the public perception of history, in this case the history of World War II.

Historiographic foodways: a survey of food and drink histories in Australia

This essay is a survey of the field of food and drink history in Australia since the 1970s. It discusses the range of research and picks out key historiographic aspects: the search for an Australian cuisine; regional food cultures; connection between sources and historical interpretation; and the interdisciplinarity of food and drink history. It suggests that as food and drink histories have broadened beyond a search for culinary traditions and a gastronomic sensibility, so our understanding of food and drink in Australian history has deepened. It also argues that food and drink history is more than textual knowledge in books and articles: television programs and exhibitions held in museums and libraries, for example, have enhanced our understanding of food and drink histories.

Examining the Suojia Ecomuseum and the Nandan Ecomuseum in China

China hosts some 55 ethnic minority groups, which together account for 8.41% of the Chinese population. These populations reside in predominantly Ethnic Minority Villages presenting great value and culture of their heritage, with living landscape, festivals, architecture and costumes, but the actual living conditions are very poor. Since the 1990s, China has adopted French concept 'ecomuseum', for the conservation of some ethnic villages to relieve the conflict between poverty and heritage conservation. ln short, this concept involves the creation of open-air museums keeping buildings and people in their original sites, with local communities serving as curators managing their own sites, which necessitates democracy in the conservation and interpretation processes. The concept seems ideal for the Chinese government, with its bilateral objectives of heritage conservation and poverty alleviation, without necessitating the relocation of any or buildings. However, does this concept really work? It remains unanswered and the subject of little academic research. In order to examine how successfully these ecomuseums are being managed, two projects has been selected for case studies - the Suojia Ecomuseum and the Nandan Ecomuseum. In-depth field studies have been conducted at the two ecomuseums, involving the methodologies of site observation, documentation and semi-structured interviews. This paper reviews the ecomuseum development in China, and then provides detailed critiques and overviews of the Suojia Ecomuseum and the Nandan Ecomuseum in terms of their backgrounds, management structures, programs and activities as well as pertinent issues. Based upon these descriptions, it is·identified that the two cases have different management structures and focuses: 1) the Suojia Ecomuseum has been under the management of government authorities whilst the Nandan Ecomuseum has been operated by local villagers, and 2) the focus of the Suojia Ecomuseum has been improving living conditions for the residents, while in Nandan Ecomuseum cultural inheritance has been operated as a core program. However, there is a lack of financial support in both cases. All these issues lead to a discussion that the Nandan Ecomuseum has made greater achievement in terms of being community-based. The conclusions are hence drawn as to the suggestions to Chinese ecomuseums--the sustainability and success requires local villagers as curators as well as external financial assistance. In addition, another and more urgent need is to pass the ethnic cultures and their values to the next generation.

Defacing the acquisitions: a museal-analysis of serial killing horror in cinema

Explores the relationship between serial killing and affect as a form of cinematic horror that repositions the viewer away from the logic of reason through a dismantling of subjectivity via 'modifications' to the body. The chapter has a particular attention to the representation of serial killing in the museum space - theoretically a locus of modern rationality and order- to argue that the museum can be philsophically understood as functioning to detatch desire from subjective formation and fixed encoding of identies. The chapter draws on philosopher Gilles Deleuze and theorists Anna Powell and Steven Shaviro.

Reading ancient coins: automatically identifying denarii using obverse legend seeded retrieval

The aim of this paper is to automatically identify a Roman Imperial denarius from a single query photograph of its obverse and reverse. Such functionality has the potential to contribute greatly to various national schemes which encourage laymen to report their finds to local museums. Our work introduces a series of novelties: (i) this is the first paper which describes a method for extracting the legend of an ancient coin from a photograph; (ii) we are also the first to suggest the idea and propose a method for identifying a coin using a series of carefully engineered retrievals, each harnessed for further information using visual or meta-data processing; (iii) we show how in addition to a unique standard reference number for a query coin, the proposed system can be used to extract salient coin information (issuing authority, obverse and reverse descriptions, mint date) and retrieve images of other coins of the same type.

Opportunistic destinations : transforming railway stations into sustainable urban centres

All over the world stations are changing to become new urban centres and destinations. Some flagship projects, like Atocha in Madrid or Grand Central in Manhattan, make great destinations with shops, restaurants, museums and exhibition spaces. The urban spaces around them have been redesigned to provide excellent public areas and rationalise functional needs. Suburban stations also have the potential to follow the same trend. After all, stations are places of high symbolic value, they are central to the life of many people and include all sections of society, while generating high footfall and stimulating the economy. For this reason, Station Master Planning must focus on 'place' as well as 'product' to respond to the multiple opportunities. Considering the need that designs of stations need to be sustainable and preserve and value the public spaces, this paper reflects on the case study of the station master plan of the Tottenham Hale Station in London where SKM Colin Buchanan applied opportunistic urban design principles and created a new, significant urban square for north London and a local destination for leisure and investment. The design methodology are transferred to the local context of Melbourne where the unique spatial circumstances of suburban stations along the New Regional Rail Link line are reviewed, highlighting how these stations possesses specific opportunistic and sustainable urban design answers.

Railway stations : public realm gateways to sustainable futures of our cities

Train stations are places of connection in our cities and are the gateways of urban space. They represent one of the most exciting places to experience. Some stations make great destinations offering shops, restaurants, museums and exhibition spaces to commuters. While new architecture at railway stations acknowledges heritage, the urban spaces around them provide excellent public areas and rationalise functional needs. Grand spaces with monumental structures, including constant movement of people and trains makes for an exhilarating experience. Modern or historic, great train stations add another level of excitement in the regeneration of our cities. Adding into the mix of the sustainability paradigm, place making of railway stations transforms into sustainable urban centres and signature architecture, but how does it support an environmentally sustainable future? This paper reflects the journey of exploring the challenging situations of balancing the requirements between historic, operational, functional, economic and innovative sustainable design solutions during the Flinders Street Station Design Competition in Melbourne. The author highlights how the unique spatial, social and cultural circumstance of this world-renowned city railway station possesses specific resilient and sustainable design answers to a public realm and city space that challenges established thinking.