Chess in Victoria
Social life & customs, Such was life:
The Library’s Chess Collection reflects Victorian’s long enthusiasm for the game.
A Christmas Listening List
Christmas always brings with it a wealth of seasonal music, and who could resist the Wiggles and Santa Claus?
A very Argus Christmas
The Library’s Argus Collection consists of thousands of newspaper photographs, mainly related to WW1 and WW2, many of which have been digitised.
Rare 17th-century works acquired
News:
A selection of rare 17th-century English Civil War pamphlets have been acquired for the State Library’s Emmerson collection. The 33 pamphlets were purchased using funds bequeathed by John Emmerson to support ongoing additions to his exceptional collection of early printed English books.
The Howard Arkley Archive
People & professions, Such was life:
Howard Arkley (1951-1999) is acknowledged as one of the most important artists in contemporary Australian art. His archive was acquired by the Library in 2011 and consists of hundreds of drawings, sketches, watercolours, photographs and diaries which give insights into Arkley’s planning processes, influences and reading.
An itsy bitsy teenie weenie slice of summer
You don’t have to be outdoors to enjoy summer.
The little blue building
Buildings & streets, Such was life:
There’s a little blue building outside Flinders Street Station. ‘When was it built?’, a curious library patron asked. The question led me to some interesting research involving milk cans, viaduct vaults and bananas.
1970s photos of Fitzroy and Castlemaine now online
News:
Thanks to the many generous supporters of our 2014 public appeal, we have recently made hundreds of never-before-seen historic photographs of Fitzroy and Castlemaine available online.
Life behind the stacks
11 kilometres of books, papers and ephemera are hidden beneath the streets of Melbourne. Anyone can access them, but they’ll need a State Library card.
Just inside the cover: the miniature art of the bookplate
Rare Books & Arts, Visual arts:
Guest blogger and library volunteer Christine Bell shares her passion for bookplates and throws some light on the work she’s doing behind the scenes on some of our own collections.
Such was life
On the case: Detective Piggott and the development of forensics
The early 1900s was an exciting time to be a detective. Innovations in science and technology, combined with the popularity of detective stories shifted crime fighting away from the seedy world of informers, which had influenced the early years of policing, towards the detection of crime using scientific methods and forensic evidence. Find out about how one Victorian detective contributed to the development of police forensics.
Arts
Portraits of Melbourne artists in their studios
John Hinds, an artist, photographer and active ROAR member from 1986 to 1992 spent time capturing artists he personally knew and the spaces that they used to create their works. His photographs captured a unique and often unseen time and place, creating an invaluable insight into the art scene in Melbourne.
