Kodak – at Museum of Victoria

Museums, libraries and historical societies are often the ultimate repositories of business records. Museum Victoria holds the records of Kodak.

Of especial interest to ephemerists is the advertising material. The Museum reports that:

Museum Victoria acquired a large collection of artefacts in 2005 relating to Kodak Australasia, after its Coburg factory closed. Some of this material includes original scrapbooks containing advertising compiled by Kodak in the mid-late 20th century, as well as a range of other marketing material, and business ledgers, correspondence and files. This project seeks to enhance the data for this advertising and archives material in order to better manage the collection and to facilitate publishing it onto the Museum’s Collections Online website.

According to a March 2014 newsletter, the Museum is working to get the remainder of the scrapbooks online.

Right now (May 2014) there is just under 2,000 items available online including objects, documents, trade literature and photographs. 

The collection covers a vast range of activities at Kodak including employee war service newsletters, staff wage books, cameras, other photographic equipment. You can read about it online. 

The Museum is supplementing this material by recording interviews with former Kodak workers.