by Rachel Kuchel
In November 2021 Lutheran Archives was faced with the prospect of having no employees for 2022. Archivists Janette Lange and Adam Kauschke were set to finish their service with the Archives to take up other roles and opportunities, while I will be on a year’s maternity leave from April 2022.
Janette plans to establish her own consultancy business alongside her role as archivist for South Australia’s Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, while Adam has moved to manage another nationally significant archival collection in Adelaide.
However, God had the situation in hand, and we are excited to introduce the three exceptionally talented archivists who have joined our team!
READY TO HELP WITH YOUR RECORDS
Bethany Pietsch is our new reference archivist for Mondays and Tuesdays. Recently awarded first-class honours in history at the University of Adelaide, she has excellent German language skills and an intimate working knowledge of the LCANZ.
Ben Hollister has been appointed to the same role for Thursdays and Fridays. Ben has several research consultancies in family history with a strong focus on German heritage. He also conducts guided German heritage tours around Adelaide.
Bethany and Ben will be your first point of contact at Lutheran Archives – and will help you with research, and managing transfers of records from congregations, departments, auxiliaries, or personal interactions with the LCANZ.
Angela Schilling is our new collections archivist. Working full-time, her focus is on making the collection accessible through arrangement and description, digitisation projects and managing our volunteer program. She has most recently worked as an archivist at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in Canberra, specialising in manuscripts and audio-visual collections. We are thrilled to have her on board and look forward to her expertise in dealing sensitively with our wealth of mission material.
HOW DOES LUTHERAN ARCHIVES SERVE THE LCANZ?
As a Ministry Support Department of the church, Lutheran Archives’ role is to support you in your ministries. We can offer advice on managing your records and caring for permanent records that you no longer regularly access.
Managing your records appropriately enables you to focus on your ministries.
Congregations, departments and auxiliaries which deposit their records with Lutheran Archives remain the owners of the records – Lutheran Archives is simply the custodian. This means our archivists make the collection management decisions about the best way to care for your records into the future and how to provide access to them for generations to come.
Rachel Kuchel is Director of Lutheran Archives.
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