Pulse caught up with Julie McCarthy, UNE’s newly appointed Archives and Collections Advisor to learn more about the role and the person.

Like so many other professionals, Julie grew up in Armidale, left to build a career and returned to the ‘Dale to raise her young family.

What skills and experience do you bring to the role of Archives and Collection Advisor?

I completed a Bachelor of Arts at UNE before moving to Canberra where I graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science in the Conservation of Cultural Materials. After graduating I remained in Canberra, working as a paper conservator in the National Library before moving to Melbourne and spending five years working at the National Archives. These were the typical conservation treatment/preservation roles that were typical in large cultural organisations. They taught me a lot about preservation, digitisation and project management within large scale collections. 

From Melbourne I meandered back to Armidale via Mallacoota as we had children and wanted to make the tree change to raise our children closer to family.

In Armidale, I worked at Dixson library as Collection Management and Development Coordinator until the collections management section was disbanded in a restructure, after which I set up as conservator in private practice.

The last five years in private practice have been very rewarding as I had the opportunity to work with small museums and archives as well as the NSW National Trust. There are so many stories that are attached to the objects that people bring to me for private conservation work, whether that be a booklet of handwritten poems, family photos, letters or artworks that have been handed down – it’s a privilege to work on them.

I am also a professional member of the AICCM, and a member of their Disaster Preparedness Committee. 

How would you describe your role as Archives and Collections Advisor?

Well, firstly I’m not employed as an Archivist. Rather my role is to put in place a strategic plan for the future direction of the Archives and make sure that our three main collections are preserved, accessible, future-proof but also easily findable for our diverse users.

UNE is a regional archive for Museums of History NSW (State Records) which means we have a duty of care to preserve that collection and make it available through the State Records office.

We also have the UNE archive which is material that has to be preserved from a records point of view, i.e. legislated. So, we’ll work closely and strategically with UNE’s record management office to ensure compliance.

The third pillar is the community side of our collection comprising donations from the public, including historically important climate records, property staffing records, photographs and so on.

What are your priorities for the Heritage Centre?

The obvious priority is to re-open the Heritage Centre and welcome the community and other stakeholders back to the archives so watch this space!

I’m also focused on either rebuilding or strengthening key partnerships with stakeholders such as Record Management, MH NSW, the community, researchers and students.

My overarching focus for the next five years will be to:

• Preserve, describe and digitise our collection and make it accessible locally and globally;
• Reconnect with the community of users;
• Create an inclusive and comprehensive collection; and
• Support university research and student engagement.

How would you describe your management style?

I’m a collaborative worker and for me it’s all about relationships; having conversations and learning about people’s skill sets. I also have a lot of appreciation for volunteers as they have incredible knowledge and potential to really add value. Going forward I’d like to explore such relationships in more depth.

It’s great to work with Melissa Gibbs who is my “partner in time”. We will be the two staff members at the Heritage Centre when it reopens.

Do you have any hobbies or other interests you would like to share with Pulse?

As a granite girl, I love bushwalking.

I also bind books for fun and dabble in old photographic processes such as cyanotypes and salted paper prints, taking digital photos and creating paper negatives out of those and printing them.

I love reading and usually have a fiction and non-fiction book on the go. I’m currently reading China Mieville’s Three Moments of an Explosion and Richard Trudgen’s Why Warriors Lie Down and Die – both excellent books.