About Us
Located within a single room within the Avondale College Library is a a unique collection of documents, publications magazines, artworks, multimedia and artefact's created by employees, members and volunteers of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific islands.
A Seventh-day Adventist heritage collection grew from discussion between Keith Clouten, Pastors Frame and Parmenter and Dr Eric Magnusson in 1973. In 1977 three office rooms were renovated to house library shelving and to accommodate what was called the Heritage Room Collection. The Heritage Room collection grew and overflowed into the Avondale College Library over the succeeding years.
In the 1990s, the collection, now called Avondale College South Pacific Division Heritage Room, was relocated to Avondale’s White building as Library extensions were undertaken. Then in 1998 when the alterations to the Library building were completed the collection was moved to a where it is today. Shortly there after a curator was appointed on limited part-time basis, freeing Library staff to engage in more important matters.
In 2003 the collection was renamed the Adventist Heritage Centre to reflect more truly its vast collection. Since then the Centre has continued to grow in size, and is again looking for additional storage and display space.
Collection:
The serial or magazine collection consists of over 500 current and back issues of Seventh-day Adventist titles, such as the Australian 'Bible Echo', 'Longburn Echo', Appeal for Missions', Australasian Record', conference bulletins, school and college publications, annual
The Multimedia collection includes hundreds of photographs, films, video and audio recordings just to a name a few of the formats. Even though it may not always talk back, this material places a human face on the history of the Seventh-day Adventist church, and provides and extremely valuable source of material for researchers.
The collection also houses over 2,000 books, numerous building plans, models, and artworks. Plus a large collection of Oceanic ethnographic artefact's. the current collection owes its growth to materials generously donated by individuals, families, and institutions. And we thank everyone for helping us to build this significant Seventh-day Adventist Oceanic collection.
Staffing:
Curator: Ms Rose-lee Power Heritage
Assistants: Janet Augustinsen, Amanda Kemp
This team has facilitated a significant growth in the content and size of the Centre’s collection and has improved client services. They handle all material formats (old and new), including oceanic artefact's from single item to prearranged truckload donations. “Sometimes the oddest pieces can be the missing link in the story of the Church’s history,” says Ms Power. “We never know what might be important until we see or hear about something.”
The team’s dream
The dream is to someday have a purpose-built building that will house and display the many treasures of the existing collection.