Vale Petr Herel (1943 – 2022)
News:
State Library Victoria is saddened by the passing of Australian artist Petr Herel. Petr was a practicing artist for over sixty years, and was best known for his printmaking and his exquisite artist books.
Small but mighty: cataloguing a rare Ukrainian prayer book
Collection Development & Description:
It often takes a village to catalogue a rare book. In this blog post, SLV rare books cataloguer Nina Whittaker shares the dynamic, and transnational, process of cataloguing a Ukrainian prayer book. This journey takes us from Melbourne to Croatia, to Bosnia and the Yugoslav People’s Army, and ultimately through to the Ukrainian migrant community in Geelong and the 2016 SLV Ukrainian Fellowship
Edna Walling: wild at heart
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights, Victorian history:
Edna Walling was a trailblazing Australian garden designer of the 20th century. Her passion, uncompromising vision and way with words changed the way we think about our gardens.
2002: A space oddity
With the help of the Women Writers Fund, the Library recently acquired Laura Dayton Fessenden’s most fascinating work of speculative fiction, 2002: Childlife One Hundred Years From Now.
The Gerritsen Collection & Dr Aletta H. Jacobs: a pioneer of women’s history & visionary
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights:
There are many names in the history of feminism and women’s rights but, unlike Mary Wollstonecraft, Vida Goldstein or Emmeline Pankhurst, the name Dr. Aletta. H. Jacobs (1854-1929) is little known, even though many of her papers have been collected by UNESCO in their Memory of the World archive.
Émilie Du Châtelet: a pioneer in the Age of Enlightenment
“To be happy, one must rid oneself of prejudice, be virtuous, healthy, and have a capacity for enjoyment and for passion“ – Émilie du Châtelet, Discours sur le bonheur. Le siècle… Read More ›
A culinary archive: discovering Stephanie’s
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights, Victorian history:
The 1970s and 80s saw a dramatic change in Melbourne’s restaurant scene. One of the most influential restaurants of this period was Stephanie Alexander’s restaurant, Stephanie’s. Through menus, photographs, recipes, notebooks and more, the Stephanie Alexander collection provides a taste of what it was like to eat at Stephanie’s in its heyday.
Victorian CEDT Index : a new family history resource for Chinese Victorians
Family matters, Research tips & tricks:
In 2021 the Chinese Australian Family Historians of Victoria Inc. (CAFHOV) launched a fascinating new resource, the Victorian CEDT index. This online resource indexes three registers of applications for Certificates Exempting from Dictation Test (CEDT), covering the years 1904-1959. Over 90% of the people listed were Chinese, however people with Indian, Japanese or Syrian ancestry are also included.
World Poetry Day
Collection, Collection spotlights, Events, Exhibitions:
If you listen to a poem, in any language, you understand it. Why?! Because it speaks the universal language of human emotion.
Elizabeth Gould (1804-1841): Artist, traveller, wife and mother
Collection spotlights, Our stories:
This year in our World of the book exhibition, we celebrate the life and work of the artist Elizabeth Gould with a display including one of three rare original watercolours by Elizabeth from the Library’s collection.
Such was life
Arts
‘It really belongs to you people anyway…’: The story of Ken Pound
To celebrate the Children’s Book Council of Australia Week, we pay tribute to the life of children’s literature collector, Ken Pound, and the collection he has left for us all.
