Curating media history: Lessons from the Oxford Bibliography of ‘Australian Broadcasting’

Abstract

This article explores a general question – why and how we do media history – by examining a recent case, the ‘Australian Broadcasting’ entry in Oxford Bibliographies, prepared by this author with research assistance from Rosemary Curtis. Four questions are posed for this bibliography and the wider project of media history: why do we do it? For whom? Where and how do we make resources accessible and comprehensible? And finally, the question that occupies most of this article, what resources do we preserve and curate? The processes used to select and organize the ‘most important sources’ for the Australian Broadcasting entry are discussed, emphasizing the sources most relevant to Australian Journalism Review: News, Currents Affairs, Documentary and Talkback Radio programming.