The Ongoing Need for the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau

The recent civil unrest in the French external territory of New Caledonia is the latest reminder that documentary heritage in the Pacific is continuously at risk of damage or destruction from both environmental and human threats. Humidity, cyclones and rising sea levels are all very real threats to archival collections in the Pacific, as are human factors such as civil unrest, lack of relevant training and short-term development projects. In a region shaped so quickly and drastically by colonisation, missionisation and globalisation, documentary heritage can provide important throughlines to lost land, languages and cultural practices; to challenge imposed narratives and build new, overlooked and empowering narratives. Since its establishment at the Australian National University (ANU) in 1968, the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (also PMB, Pambu or the Bureau) has developed a practical understanding of this spectrum of threats to Pacific archives. This has developed over decades of regular and documented field trips with portable reformatting equipment to copy at-risk collections across Oceania. The Bureau has copied private collections whose originals can no longer be located; records that have since been destroyed by fire due to civil unrest or faulty electrics, and most recently in the aftermath of a submarine volcanic eruption. Yet, in 2024, there is still no dedicated archives qualification on offer at tertiary level in the Pacific Islands. Archival institutions remain widely under-resourced and the digital turn presents new challenges such as access to equipment repairs and reliance on unstable carriers for digital storage. The ongoing existence of these challenges means there remains a high demand for Pacific Manuscripts Bureau services. Until there is sustained investment in the infrastructure and resources needed to support archives in the Pacific, the Bureau, with its small team of approximately 1.5 full-time equivalent staff, will continue to have a role in preserving Pacific documentary heritage.