Since its establishment at the Australian National University (ANU) in 1968, the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (or ‘Pambu’) collection has been developed over decades of regular and documented field trips with portable reformatting equipment to copy at-risk collections in Oceania and beyond. The Bureau has copied private collections whose originals can no longer be located; records that have since been destroyed by fire due to civil unrest or faulty electrics, and most recently in the aftermath of a submarine volcanic eruption. Of the three copying projects that have worked with Pacific records - PARADISEC and the Australian Joint Copying Project, and Pambu - the latter is the longest continuing program.

The Pambu collection has been compiled from a wide range of documentary heritage sources, including church and mission organisations and individual missionaries; museums and libraries; business enterprises, government agencies; scholars and private citizens.

The Pambu collection constitutes a significant resource for both Australia and the Pacific, as it documents this country’s historical relationship with our Pacific neighbours, and the complex interrelationships that this has entailed over a period characterised by colonisation and decolonisation, war, missionary activity, commercial enterprise, and globalisation. It is of historical significance for both Australia and the Pacific; and of social significance for many communities in the Pacific for whom Pambu is their only connection to their historical records.

Pacific documentary heritage collections are at considerable risk: they are subject to climate events such as cyclones; lack of resources; and, latterly, civil unrest. Although the collection consists of copies of original documents, many of these are no longer accessible or have been destroyed, so the Pambu copy of a document may be the only surviving version.