What do the collections contain?

It is estimated that, in total, the Australian Museum collections contain in excess of 16 million cultural objects and specimens of animals, fossils and minerals which represent a readily accessible portion of our world.

Specimens are natural objects, such as minerals, animals and fossils which form part of an organised collection.

Cultural objects are items that have been made by people for a particular use. These include domestic, trade, ceremonial and artistic objects.

Each specimen and object has a label which holds essential information, including the date and location of its collection and the name of its collector. The label has a unique registration number which is used to keep track of the specimen or object and its associated information. This information, or data, is then entered into an electronic database.

Without these data, the scientific and cultural value of each specimen or object would be greatly reduced. Data give an insight into a cultural object's affiliation and use, or records the environment and circumstances in which a specimen was collected. Without this contextual information a meaningful study of the object or specimen can be very difficult.

 


Brooke Carson-Ewart , Web Manager
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9 comments

qlinsey - 12.11 PM, 09 November 2010
Hi, Dear Melanie van Olffen, Thanks a lot for your response! best regards linsey
Melanie van Olffen - 12.11 PM, 08 November 2010

Dear Linsey,

Unfortunately, the museum has very limted resources to actively acquire material for the Cultural Collections. It does occassionaly happen that we have the opportunity to acquire some works or objects that are considered of great importance to build on our exisiting strenghts in the collection, but often we'll have to look for other sources of funding to secure such an opportunity.

Suggestions and/or acquisition proposals from Collection staff in our section are discussed in our Collection Acquisition Committee where collectively is assessed whether an proposed acuisition (either though donation or purchased) is in line with our Collection Development Policy, and whether there are funds available.

These are the general procedures regarding our accepting donations or considering acquisitions in our Cultural Collections section, for questions regarding specific cases, please contact me directly via this website, or alternatively contact our collection coordinator, Dion Peita. Our contact details can be found in the staff finder on this site.

 

 

qlinsey - 10.11 PM, 02 November 2010
HI, Dear Melanie van Olffen, thanks a lot for your response ! May I bother to ask one more question: if the sword is not fake according to what mentioned above, it can only be donated as a collection into museum and not be bought by the museum, am i right ? hope to get your reply! thanks a lot again !
Melanie van Olffen - 11.10 AM, 25 October 2010

 Dear Linsey,

Thanks for your enquiry.
The Australian Museum’s Cultural Collections contains - besides large collections from the Pacific and Indigenous Australia- also collections from Asia, Africa and the Americas. Many of these collections came to the museum in the early part of the 20th century. In our current Collection Development Policy, which outlines the guidelines regarding further development of our Cultural Collections, a number of core collections have been identified that are in line with the museum’s mission and theme for collection development (mostly Indigenous Australia and Pacific collections). These collections build on our core areas and correspond with the research programs outlined in our Research Strategy.
In addition to the outlined guidelines in our Collection Development Policy it also depends on the contextual information that is available for an object whether it would make a meaningful addition to these core collections. This contextual information would tell us more about who collected the object(s), when, and from where. Another factor that we have to take into consideration is the physical state of the object, as we are unable to accept material into the collection that requires too much additional conservation work due to limited resources.
So to summarise, it depends on a number of factors whether we would accept a specific object into the collection as a donation. 
I hope this gives a bit of an insight into what we in Cultural Collections currently collect and why.
qlinsey - 9.10 PM, 15 October 2010
Hi, dear sir/madam, I have one sword at Qing Dynasty (1739) of china. May I ask whether the museum collect such item? hope to get your response ! linsey pang

Comment Attachment

Brooke Carson-Ewart - 11.08 AM, 05 August 2010

Hi Joe,

Our Mineralogy Collection Manager has looked at your photos, but said that it is impossible to verify the objects as meteorites from photos alone. If you were from Sydney you could bring them here and he would be happy to look at them for you and identify them. As we are not a commercial body we cannot assist him to sell the specimens. However as you are not from Australia and I imagine these specimens would be much to heavy to travel you should probably contact the nearest Natural History Museum to you and see if they can help. Good luck and do let us know how you go with your enquiries.

 

koonstone - 5.04 PM, 13 April 2010
hey all! I have recently found seven , and possibly eight meteorites. Including, several small Chondites, two Iron, but, the last one leaves me continuing research to identify! This Meteorite, the largest of all (400grplus/minus), resembles Lodranite, Arcpulcoite, but partical size(flecks) are much smaller. It has , also, May colors and shapes of very small crystles, many totally clear. can be seen only with a microscope. It also has a full crust with many charictoristics of it's own! there is just so much to look at, inside and out! Now, this may tend to move some away from reality, but , it is hardly magnettic. A very strong magenet to just barely be attracted to it. but appears to have metal flecks! One more important note; Of the people I have shown this to, several have , with no mention of doing this, Have brought it to their face and smelled it! Remarking how strange it smells! This points me next , to possibly be a Carbonaceous Chondite! Sounds good to me! I'll be putting it up for sale soon, unless a fair offer is made. But one thing is for sure - This stone is without a doubt a Meteorite. I could use any help possible to help identify it, and sell it. I reall tend to hesitate mailing it to any firm with noterity in the testing and classifying it. For Im sure it is very rare , and very rare things tend to disappear. But I will meet with any one that represents one of these firms here, so it can be examined. I encourage it. Thanks, and if you don't see the photos Im downloading , try going to [IMG]http://i733.photobucket.com/albums/ww334/joefinds/meteorite004.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i733.photobucket.com/albums/ww334/joefinds/lotsa-variety-coins205.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i733.photobucket.com/albums/ww334/joefinds/met-close068.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i733.photobucket.com/albums/ww334/joefinds/meteoritephotos282.jpg[/IMG] photobucket.com//s733joefinds/albums

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