By the Editor

The Management Committee of the Professional Historians Association (Qld) has commissioned a project to look at the state of the history profession in Queensland.

As an association of professional historians, it is natural to be concerned to get an accurate understanding of the state of its profession and of the heritage-history market. The project will incorporate a series of statistical and other analytic studies to assess history research higher degree (RHD) graduate numbers, employment opportunities for historians, and numbers of contracts or work positions available to historians. The important question is the pattern that these indicators form over the past decades to provide a conclusion about the state of the profession in Queensland.

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By Chris Dawson

Last year I reluctantly set up a Facebook account in order to create a Facebook page for the Historical Society that I am a member of. Like other longstanding skeptics I viewed the social networking platform as being largely inane, but closer experience has shown that some Facebook pages can be surprisingly valuable tools for historical research.

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From time to time members of the PHAQ Management Committee get contacted, not about contract bids, but about informal enquiries on various projects. We are then usually asked for members we know that are specialists in particular history fields.

When formal job or contract opportunities are on the table the PHAQ ensures that there is an equality of opportunity for all members, and in such cases, there is no separate liaison between members. Notifications for jobs or contracts are sent out as soon as possible by general email to members. However, where there are enquires that relate to identifying a specialist the Management Committee believes that there is a role in liaison which could be formalised in a PHAQ members’ research area register. Although the PHAQ has a consultants’ register, there is a need for a larger register to cover (at least) most members and a wider range of fields.

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Lorna McDonald is our former Patron of PHAQ and a member of our association. Lorna’s recent book is a history on life in Rockhampton. The following is from the flyer:  Wonderfully illustrated with priceless photographs, period paintings, drawing and postcards, Treasures in a Tea Tin is brought to life by Central Queensland historian, Dr Lorna McDonald, in such a way…

By the Editor

I was looking for a couple of newspaper stories published in the Brisbane Telegraph during late 1970 and I happened to glanced at this intriguing report on the computer industry and privacy.

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