Donna Ballard was gobsmacked and intrigued by a recent email she received from the National Library of Australia in Canberra.
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The email explained they had added the Wingham Akoostik Music Festival 2017 program to their performing arts ephemera collection, and wished to add to the collection in future years to “ensure a record of the Akoostik Music Festival is preserved”.
The email also requested anything that could be provided on previous years’ festivals, saying, “this material will be of heritage value in the future, and we are keen to preserve it to ensure it remains publicly available for study.”
“That the National Library thinks the Wingham Akoostik Music Festival is actually worthy of adding to the national records is pretty incredible,” Donna said.
“It makes you feel that you’ve created something that’s worth remembering. Just the fact that they are acknowledging it and giving it historical recognition is lovely.”
Related reading: Akoostik Festival is ‘the real thing’
When asked how Akoostik came to be on the National Library’s radar, Donna replied that she didn’t know, but presumed it was from the distribution of the Rhythms Magazine, which included the Akoostik program, Australia-wide earlier this year.
She was wrong. Catherine Aldersey, ephemera officer, printed Australiana, Australian collections management at the National Library provided the answer.
“I think one of my colleagues might have been to the festival. They know that whenever they go further afield than Canberra, they’ve got to collect ephemera for me,” Catherine said.
“They left [the program] in my in-tray, and I realised we hadn’t previously collected anything for the Akoostik Festival.”
Catherine immediately went to the Akoostik website, which she described as beautiful.
“I was surprised because there were big names that visited in 2017,” she said. “We do collect material on a lot of these people in their own right, but we didn’t have a record for the festival.
“Akoostik Festival material will be carefully preserved at the National Library of Australia in Canberra, so that it remains publicly available into the future.
Related reading: Akoostik secures grant to grow in 2018
“This sort of ‘ephemera’ (minor printed material produced for a short term purpose) provides valuable insights and records segments of our shared cultural history, and is part of a vast collection covering all of Australia, recording primary source material reflecting our sporting and cultural life, social customs, popular culture, politics national events and issues of national concern.
“The Library makes this material publicly accessible for research and study by social historians, students, journalists, biographers, or anyone interested in our national history,” Catherine said.
“In the ephemera collection we have thousands of little mini collections for different music festivals, folk festivals, different orchestras, dance or theatre companies, as well as collections under the name of important artists or actors in Australia.
“So this means that one of our newest collections is for the Akoostik Music Festival, and it’s got a grand total of one item in it - the 2017 program! But the Festival board have been so good because they’re getting together some past programs so we can add to this collection and preserve them for the future. And every year from now on they’ll provide us with a copy of the program and the poster so that we can preserve them here for the future at the National Library,” she said.
You can see the beginning of the Wingham Akoostik Music Festival collection catalogue online
The National Library also have a collection of published geographic and travel ephemera relating to Wingham online in their catalogue.
On November 14, Donna also received a similar request from the State Library of NSW.