Stella Barber is a freelance professional historian and archivist. Her clients have included Coles Myer Ltd, CSR, Australian Archives, National Library, Victoria University, Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West, Wesley College, Museum Victoria, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Myer family, ABC and Goulburn Valley Grammar School.

She began working as an archivist with Australian Archives while working part time with Melbourne's Living Museum of the West. She joined GJ Coles and Coy in 1985 as the firm’s first archivist. Coles acquired Myer late in 1985 and Stella became manager of the largest retail archive in Australia with records dating back to the 1840s. Stella began her freelance career in 1995. Her recent work has included Sidney Myer, a Life, a Legacy (published May 2005) and Crescendo, a centenary history of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (June 2007). She is also working on a history of the Goulburn Valley Grammar School. Stella also works on significance assessments, the most recent being on the Ballarat Gold Museum and Historical Society collections. She has two young sons, James and Kieren.

She is a member of the National Cultural Heritage Committee, SA Heritage Council’s Register Committee, Professional Historians Association (SA) vice–president, and Visiting Fellow at the University of Adelaide. Susan is a National Library oral history interviewer, and has worked in partnership as Marsden Russell Historians, as SA’s State Historian, and as National Conservation Manager (Australian Council of National Trusts). She has authored or co-authored over 30 publications, including SA State Historic Preservation Plan; Business, charity and sentiment: the SA Housing Trust 1936–1986; Heritage of the City of Adelaide; Adelaide: a brief history; Federation: the guide to records; Our house: histories of Australian homes; Urban heritage: the rise and postwar development of Australia’s capital city centres; Coals to Newcastle: a history of coal loading at the Port of Newcastle NSW 1797–1997; Newcastle–a brief history; ‘Beyond FCC’: .. heritage values of post-1945 urban development in Canberra; The Royal: … A history of the Royal Newcastle Hospital 1817-2005; Challenging times: the National Trust of South Australia 1955–2005; Canberra Tracks (interpretive signs); Urban and town planning thematic heritage study; and Poles in SA since 1945 (exhibition brochure).

Freya Purnell has been a journalist and editor for over seven years, covering the diverse fields of finance, education, aged care, architecture and building, interior design, mining, and media and marketing. She now freelances for a number of publications, and provides contract custom publishing services for organisations involved in education and consumer affairs. She has also written for corporate publications for organisations such as HSBC, Drummoyne Council, Woolworths and the State Library of New South Wales. Freya was previously editor of zack magazine, a lifestyle magazine for baby boomers, and features editor of Money Management newspaper. In a welcome change from her work on financial and business issues, Freya writes on regional museums for Museums Australia Magazine and Friends.

Maria T. Rizzo is an arts marketer with over ten years’ experience in administration for artists, arts organisations, and in government, corporate and not-for-profit sectors. She has written for publications including Museums Australia Magazine, Metro Magazine, Australian Screen Education and RealTime & OnScreen. Maria is an advocate for using language that is meaningful and free of jargon in writing about contemporary art and culture, particularly for hybrid works at the intersection of art and technology.

Maria is currently the Communications Coordinator for Experimenta Media Arts, Australia’s leading contemporary arts organisation dedicated to commissioning, exhibiting and promoting media art.

Lindy Shultz assists with copyright for exhibitions; research assistance and writing for biographical projects and commissioned histories and desktop publishing.

She has a Bachelor of Information Management, with a print journalism major, an Associate Diploma of Arts in Library Studies, and has around ten years' experience in special and government libraries.

Lindy has around ten years' experience in all aspects of publication production – editing, design, indexing, copyright, print broking – producing annual reports, journals, magazines, newsletters, monographs, art and event catalogues, print advertisements, even legislation!

She has been an editor, designer and librarian with the Australian Dance Council and was a publications manager and research assistant at The Australian National University. Lindy is a member and former committee member of the Canberra Society of Editors and a member of the Australian & New Zealand Society of Indexers.

Dr Linda Young teaches aspects of cultural heritage and museum studies at Deakin University in Melbourne, and prior to that at the University of Canberra. Before that she was a practicing curator in various state museums in NSW, WA and SA. She is a specialist in historical material culture, from vernacular buildings to mass-produced ceramics, but with a soft spot for 19th century clothing and Victorian interiors. She is dedicated to making historical meanings accessible in museums and heritage sites via excellent interpretation, but is more and more convinced that this requires detailed knowledge of heritage audiences, ie visitor research.

She publishes widely in the fields of museology, collecting, 19th century Anglo world history etc in both professional and academic journals. Her current research focus is on historic houses as a genre of museum.

She consults (often with RRMS) on interpretation plans for historic sites, strategic management plans for museums, and collection research and significance assessment