Mr Hart

As in America most of Australia's historical militaria is in private hands
or in small army, navy & air force museums.  The same problems of lack of
knowledge on how to preserve items exists.

The Australian War Memorial, which holds the largest public collection of
militaria in Australia has a world class conservation section with a staff
of 14 trained conservators working in 5 disciplines.  But even so, with the
restricted funding we receive, our outreach programs are limited.  We have
prepared a set of leaflets on how to care for your memorabilia which have
been published in a newspaper circulated by the Australian Department of
Veterans Affairs, run a yearly week long course on preventative
conservation for army curators and spend up to 10% of our time answering
queries from the public.

If we can be of assistance from this distance please feel free to contact
us.

Wendy Dodd
Textiles Conservator
Australian War Memorial

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