Edit position

Last set 2 weeks, 2 days ago. Manual moves override automatic placement until the next shelfie/spine match.

Sharing stories in an ancient land : the Western Australian Museum

by Terri-ann White

Sharing Stories in an Ancient Land: The Western Australian Museum has been published to coincide with the opening of the glorious WA Museum Boola Bardip.

Accession 9781920843236 ISBN 9781920843236 Publisher Western Australian Museum

Book Images

Reference and live side by side Hover to see live images

Reference

Sharing stories in an ancient land : the Western Australian Museum spine

Sharing stories in an ancient land : the Western Australian Museum cover

Live

No live

CONNECTIONS

No connections

State

on_shelf: True
position_updated_at: 2026-05-05 17:11
orientation: vertical

Details

Physical

binding_type: Hard Back
dimensions: none captured
spine_text: Sharing stories in an ancient land the Western Australian Museum Terri-ann White WAM

LOCATION HISTORY

B 4 Current vertical

2 months ago

C 3 vertical

3 months, 2 weeks ago

C 3 vertical

5 months, 1 week ago

C 2 vertical

5 months, 1 week ago

C 3 vertical

5 months, 1 week ago

C 2 vertical

5 months, 1 week ago

C 3 vertical

5 months, 1 week ago

C 2 vertical

5 months, 1 week ago

Book Location

Updated 2 weeks, 2 days ago

Book Images

Reference and live side by side Hover to see live images

Reference

Live

No live

Vernon snapshot

Frozen copy of Vernon's record from the last sync. Fields tagged → flow back into the Pulse record.

Never synced from Vernon

Identity

name→ title

Sharing stories in an ancient land : the Western Australian Museum

vernon_id

—

accession_no→ accession_number

—

vernon_slug

—

Drives Pulse state

curr_loc_status→ on_shelf

—

location_name

—

location_reason

—

isbn_issn→ isbn (when valid)

—

Descriptive

production_date

—

object_type

—

object_status

—

brief_description

—

Subjects & people

authors→ author (initial fill only)

—

tags→ tags

—

subject_people

—

subject_objects

—

Topics and Themes

1. **Museum Practice & the Hidden Work of Collections**
The book goes behind the public-facing galleries to reveal the research, curation, and institutional labour that sustains a major museum. It explores how collections of over eight million objects are built, maintained, and made meaningful — work that is rarely visible to visitors.

The central question is: what does it actually take to create and steward a museum, and who does that work?

Connect to books about: museum studies, curatorial practice, collection management, exhibition design.

2. **Indigenous Country, Sovereignty & Cultural Continuity**
The WA Museum Boola Bardip centres Traditional Owners and their deep, unbroken connections to Country stretching back tens of thousands of years. The book grapples with how a colonial-era institution can hold and honour Indigenous knowledge, story, and presence.

The tension explored is: how does a state museum, born of a settler-colonial context, authentically represent and serve the First Peoples of the land it stands on?

Connect to books about: Indigenous sovereignty, First Nations cultural heritage, decolonising museums, Aboriginal history of Western Australia.

3. **Deep Time & Natural History**
The museum's collections contain objects that reach back to the very beginning of the universe, offering entry points into geological, biological, and cosmological deep time. The book situates Western Australia — one of the oldest landscapes on Earth — within the largest possible temporal frame.

Connect to books about: deep time, natural history, geology, palaeontology, cosmology.

4. **Heritage Architecture & the Built Museum**
The WA Museum Boola Bardip was created by integrating 130-year-old heritage buildings with a bold new modern structure. The book engages with how physical space and architecture shape the stories a museum can tell and how communities experience them.

Connect to books about: heritage conservation, museum architecture, adaptive reuse, public cultural institutions.

5. **Multivocality & Whose Stories Get Told**
The book draws on many voices — professionals, enthusiasts, and community members across generations — reflecting a deliberate move away from a single authoritative institutional voice. It raises questions about narrative power: who tells a place's stories, and from what standpoint?

Connect to books about: oral history, community archives, narrative theory, public history, diversity in museums.

6. **Migration, Settlement & Multicultural Identity**
Alongside Traditional Owners, the book acknowledges settlers, migrants, and all those who have shaped Western Australia's history and future. The museum is framed as a shared civic space belonging to everyone who has made the state their home.

Connect to books about: migration history, multicultural Australia, settler colonialism, national identity.

7. **Natural Environment, Ecology & Stewardship**
A core part of the museum's charter — and the book — is cherishing and protecting the natural richness of Western Australia's land, sky, and sea. This frames the institution as an environmental guardian, not just a cultural one.

Connect to books about: environmental history, conservation biology, ecology of Western Australia, biodiversity stewardship.

8. **Knowledge, Memory & the Purpose of Public Institutions**
At its broadest, the book is a meditation on why societies build museums at all — as engines of knowledge-making, memory-keeping, and civic imagination. It asks what it means to pursue knowledge about both the natural and human-centred worlds, and who that knowledge is ultimately for.

Connect to books about: philosophy of knowledge, public institutions, cultural memory, the history of museums.

Sharing stories in an ancient land : the Western Australian Museum

Book Images

TAGS

CONNECTIONS

State

Details

LOCATION HISTORY

Book Location

Book Images

Vernon snapshot

Topics and Themes