Earlier in 2019, the State Library of Queensland called for nominations for the Queensland Memory Awards.
Members of the Under the Lino team got wind of these awards, and decided that one of them had my name on it! Over twenty people nominated me for the John Oxley Library Community History Award… in May, 2019, as I was picking up my children from school, I got a phone call from a lady called Chrissi Theodosiou from the State Library. She advised me that I was the 2019 winner of that prestigious Community History prize! I had to ask her to repeat what she’d said, so my daughter, Kitty, could hear it too!
Professor Andrew Griffiths presented me the award, saying it was, “In recognition of excellence and innovative engagement in the documentation and sharing of Queensland’s cultural heritage.”
Getting an award from my home’s State Library was like getting a handshake from the person I most respect in the world. The Under the Lino Project has made a massive impact on the Queensland community, and I am so proud to have been leading the way for many people to start their own historical journeys.
I not only shared that stage with other Queensland history warriors, but also with people who have helped me on this journey – historians, teachers, archivists, librarians, students, researchers, residents and local politicians, all of whom have a vested interest in the well-being of their community.
I dedicated the John Oxley Library Community History Award to my community. The one I discovered Under the Lino.
This project proved that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things when they work together, sharing skills, knowledge, experience and love. Now, I speak to students and elders in our community teaching them about the methods we used to investigate the history of people, place and things, so they can start to record their own memories easily. Giving people a key to unlock their past is an honour and a gift… sharing it is now my vocation.
A prouder moment has never occurred in my career to date, and I will never forget that night.
Click here to: Watch the Presentation.
📸 2019 Queensland Memory Awards (left to right) – Vicki McDonald (State Librarian and CEO), Louise Martin-Chew, Matthew Wengert, Caylie Jeffery, Dr Gemmia Burden, Tricia King, Seth Ellis, Katie Pittock, Rutian Mi and Professor Andrew Griffiths (Chair of the Library Board of Queensland).
– 2019 John Oxley Library Award – Paul Lyons for his dedication to the recording and sharing of North Queensland news and history and his efforts to preserve Townsville news archives.
– 2019 John Oxley Library Community History Award – Caylie Jeffery for excellence and innovation in the documenting and sharing of Queensland’s cultural heritage.
– 2019 John Oxley Library Honorary Fellowship – Dr Gemmia Burden for her project ‘Private lives, public knowledge: Gendered collecting and Intimacies of place in Queensland c. 1842-1900’.
– 2019 John Oxley Library Fellowship – Louise Martin-Chew and Matthew Wengert for their project ‘Designs-Details-Devils’: A Visual History of Queensland’s Government Printing Office 1862-2013.
– 2019 Mittelheuser Scholar in Residence – Seth Ellis for the project ‘Sound as historical material: Developing a new way of cataloguing, describing and accessing sound in the archive’.
– 2019 Place Making Fellowship – Tricia King for her project ‘Banging the Drumstick: The creative and cultural legacy of the women inside the Peters Ice Cream factory’.
– 2019 Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame – Rutian Mi for his project ‘The history of Chinese business in Queensland’.
