Nominations for Margaret Medcalf Award are now closed.
Thank you for your interest.
This annual Award recognises excellence in referencing and research in the use of State archives held by the State Records Office of Western Australia. The Award honours Ms Margaret Medcalf OAM, Western Australia’s second State Archivist (1971 to 1989), for her valuable contribution to the development of archives in Western Australia. The winner of this Award receives a cash prize of $1000, or shares this prize if there is more than one winner. Works nominated for the Award must demonstrate use of archival sources, and substantial (but not necessarily exclusive) use of State archives held by the State Records Office.
Any work completed or published in 2020 that has used State archives is eligible to be submitted for nomination, and anyone, including the author of the work, may submit a nomination. Nominated works may be fiction or non-fiction and may comprise any format (i.e. book, article, conference paper, website, index, etc).
To submit a nominated work please complete the 2021 Margaret Medcalf Award Nomination Form and email it to sro@sro.wa.gov.au along with the work, or an online link to the work. If the work is only in print form, please advise when nominating.
The deadline for nominations has been extended to 4:00pm Thursday 8 July 2021.
The judging panel for the Award comprises a member of the State Records Commission, the Director State Records and a well-known WA-based historian.
The judging criteria for the Award are:
- Level of use of the State archives collection: How much does the work rely on archival sources for its argument? What proportion of the cited works are State archives?;
- Use of referencing: How well does the work reference the sources in the State archives collection? How easy would it be to locate the archival sources the author references?;
- Level of contribution to knowledge (historical, cultural, heritage, etc);
- Original use of the State archives collection: Does the work use new archival material or use different sources to answer questions or highlight issues? Is well known archival material dealt with in a new or different way?;
- Presentation: How well has the work been crafted? How well does it stimulate interest in the material? Does the work have community appeal?
