8 July 2010
The Collections Council of Australia is pleased to announce the completion and publication of its Australian Collecting Organisations Register (OzCOR).
OzCOR is published as an Excel spreadsheet. You are welcome to download it, save it, analyse it, update it, and use it!
Click HERE to download OzCOR as an Excel file [1.37 MB]
About OzCOR
OzCOR is extracted from the database of collecting organisations that the Collections Council developed during its operational existence from 2005 to 2010. The Collections Council used the database as the basis for its research into conservation / preservation employment in 2006, and developed it further after that.
OzCOR presents basic contact information about Australian collecting organisations, including archives, galleries, libraries and museums. It also classifies each organisation by the high-level collecting domains (archive, gallery, library, living, museum – and hybrid, where the organisation includes two or more domains). To learn more about the definition of the terms and categories used for OzCOR, click HERE.
It is anticipated that OzCOR will be a useful tool for future researchers, collections sector peak bodies, policy advisors, decision-makers and others. The domain-classifications make the database a useful tool for capturing the scale and breadth of the collections sector, and for investigating further its structure, types of organisation, and users.
Prior to the completion of OzCOR, other published sources enabled the Collections Council to state that there were 2,359 collecting organisations in Australia. (Click HERE to read the January 2010 factsheet prepared by the Council on this topic.)
OzCOR - the first edition
The Australian Collecting Organisations Register (as published here on 8 July 2010) includes 4,608 collecting organisations.
In February 2010, the Collections Council of Australia sought assistance from all the Australian collecting organisations in its database. Organisations were invited to check the data that the Council already held, to update or amend this if necessary, and to confirm their inclusion in the Register. The Council is very grateful to all who responded.
The Collections Council did not require every organisation to respond, but advised the collecting organisations that non-response would be interpreted to mean that no detail required alteration. This was a manageable approach for the Council, given its finite time-frame and resources, but does mean that some organisations listed in OzCOR may be inaccurately represented because they neglected to report their necessary alterations to the Council.
The information now published is as accurate as could be achieved by the Collections Council up to 30 April 2010. With a database of this scale, there will inevitably be some duplications. It is also probable that some collecting organisations are 'absent' that should have been included – either because the Collections Council’s research resources came to an end, or because the collecting organisation, for its own reasons, chose to ‘opt out’ of this publication. Some organisations that have closed may, inadvertently, still be listed. The Collections Council regrets any errors or omissions.
Please note that the Collections Council gave priority in its work to public rather than private organisations. This means that OzCOR is primarily a register of public organisations – although some private collections are also included.
The classification of organisations in OzCOR provides the following information about the Australian collections sector. Within the 4,608 collecting organisations that are listed, there are:
549 archives
246 galleries
2166 hybrid organisations
684 libraries
103 living collections
860 museums
The fields in which data have been entered for OzCOR are:
Organisation Name
Alternative Name
Contact Position
Address Line 1
Address Line 2
Suburb-Town-City
State-Territory
Postcode
Telephone
Facsimile
Mobile Phone
Email
Website
Classification
Parent Organisation
Acknowledgements
All members of the Collections Council's Secretariat contributed to the preparation of OzCOR. Particular thanks are due to Malcolm Cherry, a contracted specialist who designed the database from which OzCOR has been exported. Evalee Smith and Charlotte Smith, during their respective periods of employment with the Council, managed and developed the database, and added hundreds of new entries. Amber Chapman took the database to a new level (by adding many more entries and by classifying thousands of organisations) when using it to determine the destinations for 2,900 complimentary copies of the Council's publication, Significance 2.0. The final stages of the project were undertaken by Lisa Preston who entered the revisions as supplied by the collecting organisations, and who checked and verified a vast amount of information. Lisa's expertise with databases was of great benefit to the Collections Council. Both Amber and Lisa worked initially as volunteers, and then as paid members of staff.
Oversight of the project was provided, at different times, by Veronica Bullock, Margaret Birtley, Charlotte Smith and Alexis Tindall.
Thanks are also due to the Collections Australia Network, the Community Heritage Grants program, Auslib Press, and several of the professional associations, for their input to this project during the period 2006-2009.
The future of OzCOR
The Collections Council is pleased to announce that the Australian Government, through its Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, has agreed to receive a copy of the Australian Collecting Organisations Register. Maintenance of the database will be at the discretion of the Department.
If you notice any details that need updating in OzCOR as published by the Collections Council, please send your suggestions in an email message to:
collectionsdevelopment [AT] environment.gov.au
When pasting this email address into your correspondence, please remember to replace the [AT] with the @ symbol.
The version of OzCOR that is published here by the Collections Council is current at 8 July 2010. Any subsequent changes made to OzCOR by the Australian Government (or other organisations) will NOT be able to be published on this website, but may be published in other ways and places.