Due to the COVID-19 emergency and the social isolation measures in force in all Australian states and territories and New Zealand, the ANZSI Accreditation scheme for members is temporarily suspended. In circumstances where essential journeys outside the home are to be limited to work, medical appointments, or food and pharmacy shopping, ANZSI Council does not consider the handling, distribution and re-distribution of publications for assessment to be essential activity. The Accreditation scheme will restart at an appropriate time later this year, and all members will be notified via email and/or the Newsletter. ANZSI members who wish to know more about the scheme in order to apply at a later date should consult the Accreditation page.
National Indexing Day – South Australian Indexers
ANZSI SA members celebrate National Indexing Day in the company of old colonists at the State Library of South Australia
ANZSI SA members L to R John Liddle, Jane Oliver (Convenor), Janet Wilkinson, Judy Richter, Silvia Muscardin in front of one of the Old Colonists mosaics and indexes at the State Library of South Australia.
In 1872 businessman Emanuel Solomon commissioned photographer Henry Jones to create ‘The Old Colonists Banquet Group’ of men. It commemorates a free banquet Solomon held at the Adelaide Town Hall on 28 December 1871 for fellow colonists ‘who date their arrival before 1841’.
Jones also began a mosaic of women, partly as a consolation to those who applied for tickets only to be told that the banquet was for ‘the Male Sex’. The ‘Group of Old Colonists’ women took Jones nine years to complete, and has since been celebrated as unique in the history of Australian photography.
These mosaics are two of several held by the State Library of South Australia and were accompanied by scant and error ridden indexes, especially the index to the women’s portraits. Over a number of years State Library staff have laboriously researched what they could of the arrival and life details of these 1,100+ faces and collected the data in spreadsheets. Metadata Coordinator and ANZSI member, Janet Wilkinson was tasked to convert the data captured in the spreadsheets into MARC catalogue records and later into finding grids (or indexes) that are now on display next to facsimiles of the mosaics on level one of the Spence Wing of the State Library of South Australia.
View the old colonists in more detail in the State Library’s catalogue: The men — the women.
News from Aotearoa/New Zealand
Aotearoa/New Zealand Group
Some members of the Aotearoa/New Zealand Group met for lunch on the 15 March 2018 at the National Library café in Wellington. We are currently updating our Freelance Directory which we have not updated for a number of years. We intend to send this out with the media release about the National Indexing Day to all publishers in New Zealand. Our library is running well with another suggestion for a book purchase made at the meeting and all members present reported using the library in the last year. The group subscription of The Indexer is also proving of benefit to our members, most of whom would not be willing to take out an individual subscription.
Comments about the publishing industry in New Zealand included that there seem to be more academic books available, especially about New Zealand history, with some members having plenty of work from the university presses; however commercial publishers are finding it increasingly difficult to sell books when competing with online book depositories like Amazon; a big publisher in Auckland has moved their production to Australia; there seem to be quite a few indexers who are not a member of ANZSI working in New Zealand.
Everyone liked the café we met at and the general consensus was that a meeting earlier in the year was preferable to one at the end of the year when we are all busy. We propose to meet again next year around Feb/March.
ANZSI Council 2017-18
At the Annual General Meeting on 24 October Madeleine Davis was elected unopposed as President of ANZSI for 2017-18. Terri Mackenzie continues as Vice-President, and Sherrey Quinn as Secretary. Council members are Shirley Campbell, Elisabeth Thomas, Denene Cavanagh, Juliet Richters, and Michael Wyatt.