[A guest post from Kathy, one of our brilliant IDC volunteers!] 

Photo: Rodney Start  Source: Museum Victoria

On November 22, 2009, the Immigration Museum will celebrate Melbourne's Lebanese community. The Lebanese Cedar Festival showcases Lebanese culture through traditional music, dance, talks and films. Come along to enjoy roving entertainers, games such as touleh (backgammon) and lebanese coffee and sweets!

The Immigration Discovery Centre has a diverse range of resources focussing on migration and cultural diversity. We at the IDC have been having fun preparing for the Lebanese Festival. Resources include the Lebanese Resource Folder, a range of reference books and an Infosheet (prepared by one of our volunteers) on Lebanese migration to Australia. This contains a list of useful websites.

Infosheets have also been prepared on Dutch, German and Indonesian migration to Australia, with more to come soon...

Volunteers play an important role in the Immigration Discovery Centre, helping with things such as answering queries, preparing InfoSheets, and participating in community celebrations. If you'd like to find out more about volunteering with Museum Victoria, you can get more information here.

This afternoon I had the pleasure of introducing Peter Plowman at the launch of his new book Migrant Ships to Australia and New Zealand, 1900 to 1939. For a couple of hours, Immigration Museum's theatrette became the site of an old-fashioned slideshow, as vessel after vessel flashed onto the screen to Peter's expert commentary. Masts came and went, funnels grew and diminished, names altered, colours changed - and history charged forward from the start of the century via two World Wars. Who knew that so many ships made the perilous journey from Europe to Australia? Then, in 1914, and again in 1939, they all turned around again.

Photo: W. S. Anderson  Source: Museum Victoria

Photo: Unknown  Source: Arnost Vochala 

At first, I thought I was in for a convict story. The visitor to the Immigration Discovery Centre was holding out an old photograph of a scary-looking prisoner and clutching a bundle of papers. But he was also pointing at himself, and after a few seconds I saw the resemblance. "It's you!" I realised, before hearing the story of three Czechoslovakian friends arriving in Adelaide, 1949, and making friends among "the theatrical crowd." Result? A newspaper article about "one of the biggest night crowds ever seen at Glenelg" - BIG CROWD SEES MARDI GRAS - at which the fancy-dress prize "went to three New Australians who arrived from Czechoslovakia three months ago....all of Kilkenny, who wore striped pyjamas and 'trimmings' to represent a chain gang."

Proudly, the man held out a second photograph, saying "that's Oldrich, that's Ziri - and that's me." Curious party - and not a bad effort for a bunch of immigrants still recovering from jetlag.  

Photo: Unknown  Source: Arnost Vochala

An 86-year-old woman phoned the Immigration Discovery Centre asking about a certain lane in Melbourne, wanting to know if it was still a lane, and where it was located. I found Rankins Lane using Google maps and described it to the woman: "I can see the Commonwealth Bank building, and bins, and chefs eating their lunch, and an old sign advertising a printer." In turn, she told me about the Rankin family, and how her pioneering ancestor had run a funeral parlour from this tiny back street. She used to come into the city quite a lot, she told me, but today had to depend on my voice and my eyes to tell her the story of this shady corner of the CBD. "I can see some graffiti," I explained - "but it's nice graffiti." 

Photo of street art in Rankins Lane. By Doogsta via Flickr

This morning the Immigration Discovery Centre was crowded with visitors researching their family history - there wasn't a spare computer! I helped a number of people locate relevant information via the internet, including a couple of sisters seeking information about their ancestors who travelled to Victoria at the end of the 19th century. The pair spent over an hour in the centre, murmuring away, exploring PROV's website, cooperating like people who'd always known each other. 

Photo: Philip Thiel  Source: Museum Victoria