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About me
An art historian and archivist by training, I love interpretation and decoding, and more - digging around words and images, the idea, investigating context, building narrative.
I adore the research process, particularly if it takes me away from Melbourne - for Blue Mauritius, my first book, I spent time in London, Paris, Bordeaux, Singapore, Mauritius and Canberra, as well as Melbourne, even finding useful information on a work trip to Salt Lake City at the LDS Family History Center. My research experiences are many and varied (including, among other things, working as the principal research assistant on Ann Galbally’s book on the artist Charles Conder, which won The Age non-fiction book of the year award in 2003).
After my first trip to Mauritius in 2000 I wanted to write something, anything, about the island, and now I have. (My husband, Mike, is Mauritian.)
In my working life I am a research fellow in the area of ‘cultural informatics’ at the eScholarship Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. Perhaps this will make more sense if I describe it as humanities computing. I love databases and what they can do for the research process, and I love working with the web.
Oh yes, and of late I really like taking photographs and sharing them on Flickr!
I’m currently on maternity leave, looking after Baby Iris.
Publications and Papers
Helen Morgan, ‘Tropical Island Treasure: The Mauritius Collection‘, National Library of Australia News, vol.XVII, no.10, July 2007, pp.18-21.
Helen Morgan, Blue Mauritius: The Hunt for the World’s Most Valuable Stamps, Atlantic Books, London, 2006.
Joanne Evans, Nicola Frean, Helen Morgan, ‘Empowering Archivists with Technology: the HDMS Community of Practice’, ‘Archives and Communities’, Archives and Records Association of New Zealand and the Australian Society of Archivists 2005 Conference, Wellington, New Zealand, 6-8 October 2005.
Cate Elkner and Helen Morgan, ‘Keeping Archives and Creating Communities: the Santospirito Collection Project’, ‘Archives and Communities’, Archives and Records Association of New Zealand and the Australian Society of Archivists 2005 Conference, Wellington, New Zealand, 6-8 October 2005.
Shannon Faulkhead, Joanne Evans, Helen Morgan, ‘Is Technology Enough? Developing archival information systems in community environments’, XVIII Bi-Annual ESARBICA General Conference on ‘Archives and Records in The Information Society: The African Agenda’, Gaborone, Botswana, 25-29 July 2005.
Helen Morgan, ‘Thea Proctor Fan Painting 1906-1930′, Art and Life seminar, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 9 April 2005.
Helen Morgan, ‘Researching the “Post Office” Mauritius’, Philately From Australia, vol.56, no.2, June 2004, pp.26-30.
Helen Morgan, entry on Charles Curtis in Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists, Bernard Lightman (ed.), Thoemmes Continuum, Bristol, 2004.
Helen Morgan, entry on Thea Proctor’s ‘The Rose’ in On Paper: Australian Prints and Drawings in the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, 2003.
Helen Morgan, in Australasian Science:
- ‘Golden Jubilee for Antarctic ships’, May 2003, pp.27-28.
- ‘John Ignatius Bleasdale: Taster of Wines (1822-84)’, June 2002, p.43.
- ‘Science and the Making of Victoria: the Royal Society of Victoria’, September 2001, p.46.
- ‘Bill Gibbs and the Origins of Australian Meteorology’, July 2001, p.46.
- ‘A. M. (Mick) Olsen’, April 2000, p.46.
- ‘John Tubb’, November/December 1999, p.46.
- ‘Alfred Patroni: An Enterprising Engineer’ (with Morris Owen), August 1998, p.48.
Helen Morgan, (ed.), Federation and Meteorology [electronic resource], Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, 2001.
Helen Morgan, (ed.), Science and the Making of Victoria [electronic resource], Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, 2001.
Kylie Percival, Francesca Zilio, Helen Morgan, ‘Database Applications in an Imperfect World: the Necessity and Charm of Compromise’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol.28, no.2, November 2000, pp.30-44.
Helen Morgan, ‘Editorial’ (pp.6-7) and guest editorship of Archives and Manuscripts, vol.27, no.1, May 1999.
Helen Morgan, ‘How do I Appraise Thee? Let Me Count the Ways: The Archival Imperative and the Constructs of Appraisal’, ‘Working With Knowledge’ International Archives Conference, Canberra, 6-7 May 1998.
Lisa Cianci and Helen Morgan, ‘Beyond the ADS’, Archives and Reform - Preparing for Tomorrow, Proceedings of the Australian Society of Archivists Conference, Adelaide, 25-26 July 1997, The Society, O’Connor, ACT, 1998, pp. 152-63.
Helen Morgan, ‘Thea Proctor in London 1910-11: Her Early Involvement with Fashion’, Art Bulletin of Victoria 36, 1996, pp.27-36.