Our collections tell extraordinary stories and we want to share them with you.
Our 2024 Appeal aims to preserve and share more of our collections through digitisation.
Your donation will help save Queensland’s heritage for future generations.
Queensland Museum cares for more than 15 million incredible objects and artefacts but we can only display a fraction from the collections at any one time—the majority are stored away behind the scenes.
Digitisation has the power to transform public access by bringing collections online for everyone to discover and explore, no matter where they live. Digitisation also plays a vital role in preserving Queensland’s history and heritage, ensuring there’s a digital record of fragile and precious artefacts that represent the fascinating stories that have shaped our state.
We’ve got an ambitious goal to unveil our collections and we’ve already made a start. So far, over 10,000 items in our cultural collection and over 1 million specimens are available online—but with your support, we can achieve so much more.
Queensland Museum is aiming to raise $100,000 to enable the next phase of our digital journey and you can help by donating to our 2024 Appeal.
Join us to preserve and share Queensland’s history for generations to come. Thank you.
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Explore more extraordinary stories
Queensland Museum Kurilpa, Brisbane
We’re working on digitising materials in Queensland Museum’s Archives collection. This holds a century of correspondence (1860s-1980s), revealing historic social attitudes, collecting practices, and injustices impacting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. These insights are pivotal for Queensland’s truth-telling and healing.
Cobb+Co, Toowoomba
William Bolton MBE (1905-1973) and his wife, Marion, left a remarkable legacy in the Toowoomba region. We’re working on digitising the Bolton Film collection—42 rare recordings capturing life in country Queensland, with unique highlights like the 1960 Toowoomba centenary celebrations.
Rail Workshops, Ipswich
A.E "Bert" Roberts (1878-1964) as a true renaissance man and we’re working on digitising his fascinating collection—Bert captured more 1,000 images of everyday life in and around Ipswich that documents the early 20th century in the fledgling state of Queensland.
HMS Pandora, the Royal Navy ship sent to capture the HMS Bounty mutineers, sank on the Great Barrier Reef in 1791 and lay undiscovered until 1977. Queensland Museum Tropics houses the world’s largest collection of artefacts from the Pandora and we’re working on digitising this amazing shipwreck.