The significance assessment of MCMC's archives was completed this week. 

MCMC's archives include its photo collection, artwork collection, map collection, archived correspondence, regalia, library and filing system.

The assessment, titled "Merri Creek Management Committee Archives Significance Assessement" found that:

"The Merri Creek Management Committeee collection, as a whole, is of local and regional significance.  the photo collection is nationally significant.  The collection illustrates both the rise of community led activism in the 1970's and the emergence of the post-industrial Merri Creek cultural landscape over the last 30 years."

The significance assessment has had the following benefits:

• Improved knowledge of collection content, and in some cases its provenance
• Assessment has led to increased understanding of the value of the collection by staff and the public
• The assessment can be used to back up applications for funding for the collection.

The report's recommendations include:

• undertaking a preservation needs assessment
• Creating a collecting policy
• Creating a deaccession policy
• Creating a provenance register and putting time into filling it out
• Selectively digitise the photo and archive collection
• Seek further funding for preservation needs assessment and for digitising, cataloguing and preparing an online exhibition based on MCMC's photo collection.

The assessment (available for viewing here) was funded by a Community Heritage Grant administered by the National Library of Australia.  It was prepared by Pete Minard, Consulting Historian.

Community Heritage Grants are jointly funded and supported by the National Library of Australia, the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts; the National Archives of Australia, the National Film and Sound Archive and the National Museum of Australia.