The President of the Society for Hellenic Studies, Tasos Revis, has heaped praise on La Trobe librarian Eva Fish and her team of experts for the speedy restoration of the Dardalis Greek Archives at La Trobe.
In an interview with Neos Kosmos, Mr Revis extolled the professionalism and the work ethos of the university team and predicted optimistically that the restoration will be completed within the 3.5 year time frame set by the university.
“This is a monumental achievement by Eva Fisch and her collaborators,” exclaimed Mr Revis. “With almost 50% of the material being catalogued within the first year we are confident that the rest of the material will be evaluated, catalogued and uploaded on the internet, thus becoming accessible to all interested parties within Australia and the rest of the globe”.
Mr Revis speaks proudly of the initiative of the university to network with other centres of the Hellenic Diaspora.
“Ms Fisch has already met with representatives of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in the USA, in our effort to maximise the use of the archives by interested parties around the globe. We are looking forward to establishing mutually beneficial synergies we both Greek and non-Greek educational institutions and Greek organisations,” concluded Revis.
The Archives were created with a substantial donation by renowned Greek-Australian businessman Zisi Dardalis and became part of the now defunct National Centre for Hellenic Studies and Research (EKEME). The Archives consist of a major collection of newspapers, thousand of documents, thousand of administrative documents, films and other material depictions of the history of the Greek community of Australia.
The closure of EKEME shed doubt on the future of the Archives, with the university and the Society for Hellenic Studies becoming involved in a protracted legal battle about the ownership of the voluminous archival material.
Thankfully common sense prevailed and the Archives were made available to La Trobe University, which undertook to finance a 3.5 year program for the evaluation and cataloguing of all academically.
Professor Chris Mackie, Head of the School of Humanities at La Trobe University, also declares his satisfaction with the progress being made during the first year of the restoration program.
“Within a year Ms Fisch and her team managed to archive approximately 50 per cent of the material, and this makes us optimistic about meeting the three year goal set by the university,” he said.
Professor Mackie went on to say: “We have two more years to complete the task. The next step is to upload on the internet a catalogue so that students, researchers and the general public know what is available.”
Professor Mackie told Neos Kosmos that La Trobe University is discussing with Greek community organisations the probability of holding exhibitions of the catalogued material in their premises. “We are currently having discussions with the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria with the aim of exhibiting suitable material at the new Centre for Contemporary Greek Culture,” said Tasos Revis.