Collaborating to share our collections

Three Trove Partners share their stories

We recently worked with 3 Trove Partners to publish a blog about the phenomena of Beatlemania in Australia

during the band’s 1964 Australian tour. The blog was a collaboration between the Royal Agricultural & Horticultural Society of Australia (RA&HS Archives), the Powerhouse Museum and the Arts Centre Melbourne.  

We spoke with each organisation to hear their experience of working with Trove to tell the Beatlemania story.  

Anni Turnbull, Collection Curator from the Powerhouse Museum, talks about working with Trove to describe the fascinating Beatles memorabilia contained in their collection:    

‘It was great to be able to highlight some of the Powerhouse’s remarkable collection and to be part of a bigger conversation.’ 

A chocolate wrapper with the Beatles faces on it.
MacRobertsons Pty Ltd, Food packaging label featuring The Beatles, 1964, trove.nla.gov.au/work/247396401

Adelaide was a last-minute addition to The Beatle’s tour and was added due to the significant lobbying by the fans living there. The RA&HS Archives hold a lot of memorabilia and collections around their visit to Adelaide, including the ‘Beatles urinal’. Erin Reardon, Museum & Archives coordinator from the RA&HS Archives said: 

‘As a long time user of Trove as both a student and heritage professional, it was a pleasure and a thrill to have the RA&HS Archive collection featured on the website, highlighting our Beatles collection and the band's connection to the RA&HS and Adelaide Showground. We've also been fortunate to have the opportunity to promote the value of our overall collection as a family history resource. The Trove team are friendly, cooperative, and I'd highly recommend working with them - if given the chance to do so again, I definitely will.’ 

Two men looking at a scrapbook about The Beatles.
Beatles material from the collection at the RA&HS Archives.

The Arts Centre Melbourne holds a range of unique Beatles collections. Although these collections are not yet available online, they were able to share information and highlights from the collections with our community. Claudia Funder from Arts Centre Melbourne spoke about the Centre’s experience:    

‘It was terrific to work with Rianna and her team to share the amazing behind-the-scenes archive that we have on the Beatles tour of Australia at Arts Centre Melbourne. The Trove team was wonderful to work with and bringing all these collections together from the Trove Partners is exciting. I’m looking forward to doing more of this in the future.’ 

A man sitting at a desk with the Beatles memorabilia.
Rennie Ellis, Kenn Brodziak with Beatles contract and 1964 programme, 1994, trove.nla.gov.au/work/167530473

Promoting our Partners 

We love working with our Trove Partners to promote Partner collections and the stories they hold. The Trove community welcomes the opportunity to hear about the fascinating collections they can find in Trove.  Learn about how we can work together to promote your Trove collections

In addition to publishing this collaborative blog on Trove, it was also selected for inclusion in the September edition of the Trove Treasures newsletter and shared on Trove’s social media