Have you used a PMB collection by or about women? PAMBU would love to know about it!
Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (PMB) wins ANU Gender Institute Grant
The original guide was released in 1992 in response to requests from researchers. Now, 30 years later, it will be updated into a dynamic and contextualised finding aid for modern users, incorporating new approaches in feminist theory, Indigenous scholarship and archival practice.
More than 60 collections written by or about women have been added to the Bureau’s catalogue since 1992, and many women formerly identified only by their relationship to their husband are also being named and identified.
The updated guide will be co-authored by PMB Executive Officer, Kari James, and Pacific scholars Annie Kwai and Deborah Lee-Talbot throughout 2023. The team hopes the resource will become a useful guide for researchers, students and teachers alike and believes it will be the starting point for further research into many untold stories of women in the Pacific.
As the work progresses, the team will present a webinar to discuss their findings. Follow the Pambu Facebook page for updates and associated events. Many thanks to the ANU Gender Institute for their support in this endeavour.
![Photo: Margaret Tedder in a swamp taro garden, 1950s. Photo [likely] by James Tedder. PMB PHOTO 48-03a from collection ‘Margaret Tedder and James Tedder, Gardening: an album of photographs of subsistence gardening in eastern and central Solomon Islands.’ While husband James worked as a colonial administrator in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, Margaret did a lot of bush touring carrying out research on plants used by Solomon Islanders for medicines, cures and other purposes.](/sites/default/files/2023-02/PMB%20PHOTO%2048-03a.jpg "Photo: Margaret Tedder in a swamp taro garden, 1950s. Photo [likely] by James Tedder. PMB PHOTO 48-03a from collection ‘Margaret Tedder and James Tedder, Gardening: an album of photographs of subsistence gardening in eastern and central Solomon Islands.’ While husband James worked as a colonial administrator in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, Margaret did a lot of bush touring carrying out research on plants used by Solomon Islanders for medicines, cures and other purposes.")
![Photo: ‘The South West Bay PWMU [Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union] ladies show what they have made for the bazaar’, early 1960s. Photo by Deaconess Lynette Walker. PMB PHOTO 115-03a. Lyn was a missionary teacher with the Presbyterian Church in Malekula, Vanuatu (then New Hebrides). Lyn was involved with the PWMU and there are many photos of their activities in her photo collections. We’d love to know more about the PWMU and its ni-Vanuatu members.](/sites/default/files/2023-02/PMBPhoto115-03a.jpg "Photo: ‘The South West Bay PWMU [Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union] ladies show what they have made for the bazaar’, early 1960s. Photo by Deaconess Lynette Walker. PMB PHOTO 115-03a. Lyn was a missionary teacher with the Presbyterian Church in Malekula, Vanuatu (then New Hebrides). Lyn was involved with the PWMU and there are many photos of their activities in her photo collections. We’d love to know more about the PWMU and its ni-Vanuatu members.")
