This collection consists of newsletters of the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA) from September 1946 - September 1950. The 'Monthly Notes' newsletter ran from September 1946 (Vol.1, No.1) - August 1947 (Vol.1, No.12). There is also a Monthly Notes Index. In September 1947, the newsletter name changed to 'South Pacific', which ran until 1959. This set of newsletters was collected by ASOPA student Carl Franke, who served as a cadet agriculturalist in the Territory of Papua-New Guinea in 1947-1948 (see PMB MS 1445). This collection also includes miscellaneous Territory of Papua reports collected by Franke.

This collection includes:

• 'Monthly Notes', Vol.1 - Vol.1, No.12; September 1946 - August 1947
• 'Monthly Notes Index', September 1946 - August 1947
• 'South Pacific', Vol.2 - Vol.4, No.9; September 1947 - August/September 1950. Incomplete: Vol.4, No.7;June 1950 was not available for digitisation.
• 'South Pacific Law Review (Supplement to South Pacific), Vol.1, No.1 - Vol.1, No.8; July 1948-June 1950
• Territory of Papua. Lands, Surveys and Forestry. (ID 1609/27)
• Territory of Papua. Economic Geology and Mining. (ID 1610/27)

This is a dictionary of Lihir language translated into German. There is also a notebook about Christian events in Lihir language and three notebooks on Lihir grammar.

This collection of 36 postcards and photographs was amassed by Sr. Rhoda Ransom. Sr Rhoda Ransom was born in Maryborough Victoria, 29 Dec 1887 and worked as a nursing sister with the Methodist Mission in New Guinea from July 1912 until March 1913 when she returned to Australia suffering from malaria and rheumatic problems in her legs.
The majority of the collection is post card prints from the New Guinea Methodist mission series, some with notes and letters on the reverse side. Some of the post card print labels are in German. There is a family photograph (possibly taken around the time of WWI?), a passport photograph of Rhoda Ransom in 1949 and a photographic print of Rhoda Ransom in old age.

The Reverend Richard Heath Rickard (1858-1939) was a pioneer missionary in New Britain. He published the first New Britain dictionary and grammar in 1889.

Some of the documents in this collection relate only indirectly to the Rev. R.H. Rickard. The documents comprise:

1. A copy of a letter dated May 1, 1882, from Rickard to the Wesleyan Church offering his services as a missionary in New Britain.
2. A fragment of a diary kept by Rickard's wife in the Duke of York Islands from May 19, 1883, to September 24, 1883.
3. Four letters from Mrs C. Phebe Parkinson to Mrs Rickard, written between 1898 and 1939 from various places in the New Guinea Islands. One of the letters, of 1935, was written from the little-known Tingwon Islands, off the western tip of New Hanover, and is one of the fullest descriptions known of those islands. (Mrs Parkinson became a friend of the Rickards during their early years in New Britain. For an outline of her career, see the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, November, 1968:4)

The author of this manuscript, generally known as Gordon Thomas, was born in Chicago, USA, in 1890 and died in Sydney in 1966. After schooling in England, Germany and Switzerland, he began a newspaper career in Canada. In 1911 he joined the Methodist Mission in New Guinea as a printer, and later worked as a planter, trader and oil driller in that territory. He was editor of the 'Rabaul Times' from 1925-27 and 1933-42. An obituary of Thomas was published in 'Pacific Islands Monthly' for August, 1966, pp. 9-10.

When the Japanese invaded Rabaul, New Britain, in January 1942, they captured about 300 European civilians. All but half a dozen of these were removed from Rabaul in the 'Montevideo Maru', which was sunk with all hands before reaching her destination, Japan. Thomas was one of the few Europeans who was kept back by the Japanese - to work as a rouseabout at the freezer and power station. 'Rabaul - 1942-45' is an account of Thomas' life as a prisoner-of-war in New Britain, Papua New Guinea.

See also PMB 600.

Fisheries research in Papua New Guinea began in the 1920s with the Archbold expeditions and expanded during the thirty years following Schuster's 1950 Report of a survey of the inland fisheries of the Territory of Papua New Guinea. During the 1970s and 1980s there was a further increase in fisheries research and development in Papua New Guinea.<BR><P>The Fisheries Division of the Department of Agriculture was established in 1954. The Research and Surveys Branch of the Fisheries Division was formed in 1968 with its headquarters at Kanudi Fisheries Research Station, Port Moresby. A PNG Collection of research materials was established by the Research and Surveys Branch in its Library at Kanudi. The PNG Collection includes the P Series of research papers, both published and unpublished, survey material and some adminstrative reports documenting PNG fisheries research from 1948 till 1986 which were selected and arranged by John Lock, a scientist at Kanudi, in 1986.<BR>Further NFA research papers have been microfilmed at PMB 1118.

PNG Collection of Fisheries Research Papers (P Series), Nos. 778. <P><B>See reel list for further details</B>