This article was originally published in Research News (February 2024), titled 'In the Spotlight... Maggie Otto, Acting Senior Collections Advisor.'

FROM driving a troop carrier full of Pacific spears across campus to researching the provenance of antiquities in the Classics Museum, Maggie Otto has a passion for the collections held at ANU.  

Maggie has stepped into the central role of Acting Senior Collections Advisor from her position as Collections Officer in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts, within the College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS).  

One of her first duties has been to painstakingly move delicate display items from the ANU Classics Museum into storage while hail remediation work is underway.  

“I can’t even think about what I’m holding or how many thousands of years old it is! It is exciting and a privilege to be so close to these objects,” she says. 

Maggie studied history and textile design at UNSW, and with an interest in the practical applications of history, undertook a masters in Museum and Heritage Studies at ANU. 

“I enjoyed learning about museums as an area of academic research, and the focus on controversies, such as discussions around repatriation, politics and how to portray Australian history,” she says.  

“I love the cataloguing process as well! I find satisfaction in organising things.” 

Just as well, because Maggie’s first job at ANU was moving and cataloguing the Tikopia collection, relocating Pacific spears, fishing rods, weaving equipment and bowls from boxes in the basement of Llewelyn Hall to the CASS School of Archaeology and Anthropology. 

“As a high-risk, high-profile collection from the 1950s gathered by a research assistant for anthropologist Sir Raymond Firth, it was an important project that has now become a key example of how we manage collections at ANU,” she says.  

“It demonstrates what can be done with ANU collections that no one has seen or used for decades.” 

Taking on the central collections role is both exciting and a little daunting, Maggie says, but she’s looking forward to working across the whole university, and to steer the implementation of the proposed new collections management system. 

“The system will allow specific items to be easily cross-searched and located and will link to related theses at the ANU Library,” she says. 

This will be a significant step in supporting how ANU collections are activated for research and teaching. 

“We’re not a museum; we’re not here to hold objects purely for display,” Maggie says.  

“They have to be used, otherwise why are we holding them?” 

Visit the Collections SharePoint here, and the website here.