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Thursday, February 5, 2015

PANDORA'S BOX


The work that was featured on my very first post: The Enchanted Hair Ornaments, 2007, 
acrylic on canvas, 18 x 13 cm (each panel). Private Collection. Click on image to enlarge.

When I tentatively published my first blog post on August 12, 2008, there's no way I could have foreseen that blogging would develop into a significant extension of my art practice.

Unlike social media, where users are inundated with information on a minute-by-minute basis, and where there is a knee-jerk tendency to scroll right by, the website and blog sites are where people can, if they are so inclined, choose to find me; they may even decide to linger awhile. Once in a great while I've questioned why I bother to put so much energy into something so ephemeral, but never for long - I derive too much pleasure and satisfaction from blogging for it to become a serous concern. 

Now, it seems it never will be. Recently I received an email from the National Library of Australia requesting a license to include the website Deborah Klein Australian Artist (designed and maintained by Doug Willis) Deborah Klein's Art Blog and its sister blog, Moth Woman Press in PANDORA, Australia's Web Archive. Instigated by the library in 1996, the archive focuses on "identifying and archiving online publications that meet our collecting scope and priorities". PANDORA's intention is "...to build a comprehensive collection of Australian publications to ensure that Australians have access to their documentary heritage now and enable the archiving and provision of long-term access to online Australian publications."

Copyright has duly been granted to the Library, ensuring that they "will take the necessary preservation action to keep the website and blog sites "accessible as hardware and software changes over time. The Library will catalogue the websites and add the records to the National Bibliographic Database (a database of catalogue records shared by over 5,200 Australian libraries), as well as to their own online catalogue..."

Needless to add, I couldn't be more delighted.

To learn more about PANDORA and for access to archived titles, visit the website HERE.