Meetings
Our meetings are held on the second Tuesday
5pm for 5.30pm start
March, May, July, September (A.G.M), November.
Great Southern Room
4th Floor - State Library of Western Australia
8 September 2026
AGM - Kate Gregory; Dr Dean Chan; Catherine Belcher - Researcher in Residence Project funded by Maud Sholl Bequest
Researcher in Residence: Facilitating Exploratory Engagement with the Digitised AV Collections at the State Library of Western Australia
The State Library of Western Australia is digitising its at-risk, significant and unique audio-visual collections to ensure long-term preservation and enable online public access. Spanning more than 100 years, the AV collections portray people, places and events unique to Western Australia, including amateur recordings, government and private productions, films, music and interviews. In 2024, the State Library created two researcher-in-residence opportunities, funded through the Friends of Battye’s Maud Sholl Bequest for established researchers to view, listen and reflect on material digitised during 2022-23. Guided by the Library’s Collection Interpretation Strategy, the researchers were encouraged to explore the audio-visual collection in ways that aligned to their expertise. Dr Dean Chan will share his research into audio-visual material reflecting creative practice in WA from the 1960s-80s. The emergence of puppetry in WA became a special focus of his research. Dean’s project “Emplacements” reengages with the history of puppetry in WA via sound and moving image, making connections with other State Library collections, and reanimating the historical record.
Catherine Belcher is the Director of Collection Services at the State Library of Western Australia and responsible for the State Library’s at-risk audiovisual digitisation project (AVDP). Prior to her current role, Catherine worked for almost 25 years in national and state museums in Canberra and Western Australia in areas including collections management, curatorial, regional museums, community partnerships and public engagement. Her current team leads the development and management of the Library’s unique Western Australian heritage collections which tell the rich and diverse stories of Western Australia’s people and places through multiple perspectives and formats.
Dr Dean Chan is an independent researcher and consultant based in Perth and Bangkok, who specialises in cultural studies, creative industries and digital humanities in the Asia-Pacific region. His most recent projects explore how digital storytelling can be used to interpret and share West Australian history in innovative ways. From July 2024 to January 2025, he was a researcher-in-residence at the State Library of Western Australia.
Dr Kate Gregory is the Head of Research and Interpretation at the State Library of Western Australia where she leads research and curation of the collections of the J.S. Battye Library of West Australian History. Kate has a PhD in Art History from the University of Melbourne (2004). Kate’s prior roles include Historian with the National Trust of Australia (WA). Kate has served on the Western Australian Museum Board of Trustees (2012 – 2018) and is currently on History Council of WA, the WA History Foundation Council and is a member of the Australian Dictionary of Biography WA working party.
Members and guests are warmly invited to join us before the meeting for drinks and nibbles.
17 November 2026
Jane Lydon - Australian Legacies of British Slavery
In August 1833, British Parliament abolished slavery in the British Caribbean, Mauritius and the Cape. While this momentous event has continued to be celebrated, it is often forgotten that many of those who benefited from slavery had ties to other parts of the British Empire, including the settler colonies of Australia, Canada and South Africa. Between 2020-2024 our team worked to trace the movement of people, goods, capital, and practices from the Caribbean to the newly-established colony of Western Australia, working in collaboration with the National Centre of Biography, the Australian National Maritime Museum, and the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership at University College London. We researched Western Australian colonists and their networks, contributing to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, the People Australia database, and an exhibition at the ANMM. Our project demonstrated the profound importance of British slavery and slave-ownership to the colonisation of Western Australia and has helped frame a set of methods and questions that can be applied to the legacies of slavery in other settler colonial contexts.
Jane Lydon is Wesfarmers Chair of Australian History at the University of Western Australia. Her research centres upon Australia’s colonial past and its legacies in the present. Her most recent book is the co-edited (with Zoe Laidlaw) Legacies of British Slavery in Australia and New Zealand (Manchester University Press, 2026).
Members and guests are warmly invited to join us before the meeting for drinks and nibbles.
