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Historian Adele discusses cookbooks as historial resources, drawing on the National Museum’s collection in her time as a Visiting Fellow with the Museum’s Centre for Historical Research.

The AE Smith string quartet held by the National Museum is outlined by conservator Robin Tait. She also discusses the conservation strategy of display and occasional use for functional museum objects.

Renowned art collector Janet Holmes à Court discusses the deeply moving work of Aboriginal artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye with National Museum curator Margo Neale.

Curator Martha Sear discusses objects in the National Historical Collection that once belonged to Sir George Reid, a key figure in Australia’s Federation-era political history. Reid’s story features in the Australian Journeys gallery.

Curator Rebecca Nason discusses two Staffordshire figurines of nineteenth-century Irish nationalist, parliamentarian and convict William Smith O’Brien. His story is told in the Australian Journeys gallery.

Leading historians reflect on the ways in which collections can be used to interpret the past, and the issues and problems faced in doing so, in wrapping up the National Museum’s Collections 2008 symposium on material histories and objects as sources.

Curators outline examples of material culture research in Australian museums through objects including a wall-hanging crafted in a refugee camp, a military jacket, a wool collection, mining models and Australian Inland Mission Frontier Fête material.

Four National Museum of Australia curators provide examples of material culture research into a boomerang, tools used by Hmong gardeners, a dress worn at the opening of Parliament House in 1927 and objects from the Snowy Hydro-Electric Scheme.

Archaeologist Mike Smith, curator Guy Hansen, historian Margaret Anderson and anthropologist Fred Myers reflect on the way their four different disciplines have approached physical evidence at the 2008 National Museum Collections Symposium.

Curator Karen Schamberger tells the story of Guna Kinne’s Latvian national dress, assembled over a period of 20 years in Latvia, Germany and Australia, and now part of the National Museum’s National Historical Collection.