Yabba Creek, Queensland 2018

This group aims to build the student and young professional membership base of the society and to improve the engagement of younger members in society events. Future goals include a broader range of career networking or development activities and potentially extending the reach of the group to engage with and inspire high school aged students to consider geography as a future career pathway.

The Society has an extensive collection of records, maps, books, magazines and artefacts dating back to when the society was formed in 1885. RGSQ Member Rob Cook has recently become the Collections Coordinator.

In 2017 the Society commissioned Judith McKay and Bill Kitson to prepare a report, Royal Geographical Society Of Queensland; Significance Assessment of the Collection, to explore the significance of the documents and artefacts contained in the collections.

As a result, an internal review of the management of the collection, as a whole, is under way. It is anticipated that the review might recommend the implementation of a library information system to catalogue the collection, and to improve access to it for members of the Society, researchers and interested members of geographic community. It is hoped that on-line access to the catalogue will be able to be provided through the Trove service maintained by the National Library of Australia, and in other ways.

Archive Group

 Archive group member Peter Lloyd has completed a detailed report on the Society’s mostly pre-2003 collections of lantern slides, print albums and trek albums as well as CD, VHS and DVD format images. With the assistance of Graham Rees from the Website Group, third millennia technology is being trialled to collect, identify, describe and manage digital images taken of Society activities since 2003, and to digitise earlier material. It is hoped that, once collected and organised, the Society’s still and moving images can be a resource for the website, displays, presentations, publications, and other uses. Peter has also compiled a register of the Society’s artefacts and memorabilia. This is being used in the current Preservation Needs Assessment project funded by the National Library of Australia to identify the preservation needs for the Society’s significant artefacts. Any members who wish to be involved to help with archives are most welcome. Please contact the office info@rgsq.org.au for more information.

Map Collection Group

The Society’s map collection consists mainly of maps relating to Queensland – historical, heritage and modern – but also includes maps of the rest of Australia and the world. Map formats include topographic, orthophoto, cadastral, thematic and others as well as satellite images. Several thousand maps are held. The collection is maintained by Society members, Ralph Carlisle and Peter Nunan. Any members who wish to be involved in any capacity are most welcome to join this Group. Please contact the office info@rgsq.org.au for more information.

Library Group

Management of the RGSQ’s “Ken Sutton Memorial Library” is led by Jim Graham, assisted by Neville McManimm. Geographical journals feature strongly in the library, together with a small collection of books, some rare, on geographical education and the geography of Queensland. There is a text based catalogue of a significant part of the library which members are welcome to browse. At this time, the catalogue is a single user system available only on a computer at Gregory Place. The library is for reference only - items may not be removed from Gregory Place.