ASRA Conference 2000

Australasian Sound Recordings Association Conference

'SOUNDS OF FEDERATION'
Hosted by State Library Of Victoria,
Melbourne, 13 - 16 April 2000

Provisional Timetable as of 17/01/00

'Sounds Of Federation'

As we approach the celebration of the centenary of Australia's Federation, ASRA's Conference in 2000 will deal with the sounds of the Federation era.

Music and speech were pivotal in bringing Federation to fruition yet the sound recordings from or about that time have rarely been examined.

Conference papers will encompass oral history interviews, commercial, private and radio broadcast recordings related to the Federation period (broadly defined as 1890-1914).

Call For Papers

Suggested topics for discussion include recordings of:

• people or places (recorded during the Federation era)
• people involved in some aspect of Federation history
• people who lived in the Federation era.

The conference convenors would also welcome papers on the early history of sound recording or about Federation projects that involve the use of sound. There will be a particular emphasis on the experience of Aboriginal people during this period of Australian history.

Papers should be approximately 20 minutes in length and will be considered for publications in the annual ASRA journal.

'Practically Technical' Day

The conference will also include a practical day aimed at community groups, small museums, historical societies and individuals who would like some practical, hands on advice about undertaking an oral history project, collecting sound recordings, cataloguing and preserving tapes and creating sound bites for delivery through the Internet.

The practical day will be presented by representatives from the State Library of Victoria, National Library of Australia and ScreenSound Australia.

Conference Dinner

The Conference dinner will be held in the historic Shamrock Hotel, Bendigo, site of the Australian Natives' Association 1898 banquet at which Alfred Deakin delivered his rousing speech in favour of Federation. The cost of the dinner will include transport and a tour of Bendigo's historic Federation sites.