2013

Tuesday 12 November 2013
Friends of the Baillieu Library lecture
Leigh Scott Room, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 6.00 pm

Dr David Nichols: Canberra, Cultural Capital

As Canberra marks its hundredth year as the punch-line to jokes about dreary, soulless space, the time is long overdue for a reassessment of the spirit of the nation's capital city. The clichés about the city – common, as it happens, to all new cities, as well as to cities with designated functions that elevate them above mere trade or manufacture – belie the extensive networks, opportunities and ideals that have thrived in the fertile ACT soil for a century. This talk covers not only the ideas underpinning Canberra, the conception of a new national capital, the search for its site and other associated ideas, but also aspects of practical community and individual cultural expression, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century.

Dr David Nichols is senior lecturer in Urban Planning in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. He is also a broadcaster (on 3RRR-fm) and author of the bestselling The Bogan Delusion (2011), co-editor of Community: Building Modern Australia (with Hannah Lewi, 2010) and co-author of the forthcoming Trendyville (with Graeme Davison and Renate Howe). He lives in Broadmeadows.
On display at this function will be an item purchased last year by the Friends for the Library, a rare work by "Telemachus" (Francis Myers) published in Albury in 1891, promoting the town as a site for the national capital of the proposed Australian Federation.

Tuesday 15 October 2013
Friends of the Baillieu Annual Dinner and guest speaker
University House, University of Melbourne, 7.30pm

Professor Glyn Davis: Melbourne's Founding and the Australian Idea of a University

The Friends of the Baillieu Library are delighted that the University's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Glyn Davis AC, FSSA, has agreed to be our speaker at the 2013 Annual Dinner.
Professor Davis trained as a political scientist and lectured in Public Policy at Griffith University, where he was appointed Professor in 1998 and Vice-Chancellor in 2002. He has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne since 2005. Throughout his career he has coupled his academic work with hands-on experience in government. In Queensland he was Director-General of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet for several years during Peter Beattie's premiership, while more recently, in 2008, he co-chaired the Australia 2020 Summit established by the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.

As Vice-Chancellor, Professor Davis has been a driving force behind the reform of the University's teaching programs generally referred to as 'The Melbourne Model'. He has also been active in university affairs both nationally and at an international level. In 2010 he presented the 51st series of Boyer Lectures for the ABC on the topic, The Republic of Learning: Higher Education Transforms Australia. In his talk to us, he will speak on the history of the university in Australia—a story that of course foregrounds Melbourne as one of the first but that also highlights what became the Australian model of what a university might look like.

Tuesday 17 September 2013
Friends of the Baillieu Library lecture
Leigh Scott Room, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 6.00 pm

Evelyn Portek and Richard Excell: Rarae Aves: The Lyre Bird's Music Trove

'Alas, amiable Coronis, your good days are finished.' So ends Teobaldi di Gatti's 1691 opera Coronis, an opera almost as ill-fated as its heroine. Though the problem lay chiefly with the libretto, the music was not printed and survives in just a handful of manuscript copies, one of which, a finely presented and bound copy, was recently purchased for the University of Melbourne by the Friends of the Baillieu Library. Coronis has great research potential, both in its own right and as a document of operatic writing by a protegé of Jean-Baptiste Lully shortly after the latter's death. This manuscript is a spectacular addition to the Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Library's collection of French Baroque opera, built around Louise Hanson-Dyer's own collection.

The Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Library at the University of Melbourne commenced in the 19th century as the Conservatorium of Music Library with the acquisition of a small collection of orchestral works. In the 21st century it has the most significant collection in the southern hemisphere of music imprints and manuscripts from the early French Baroque period, as well as a strong collection of rare music Australiana. This evening's talk will be a journey from the library's modest beginnings to its international standing. It will include a discussion of the Coronis manuscript, which will be on display for the occasion.

Evelyn Portek has been Music Librarian at the University of Melbourne since 1992 after working as a music librarian for the State Library of Queensland. She was a freelance musician, teacher and music examiner prior to training as a librarian. With degrees from Monash University in musicology and librarianship, and a member of the medieval ensemble 'Acord', Richard Excell has been the University of Melbourne Library's Rare Music Cataloguer since 2000.

Monday 22 July 2013
Friends of the Baillieu Library members' night
Leigh Scott Room, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 6.00pm

Graham Dudley: "They are still strange people, these book collectors." – another look at rare books, crime and murder

Why is it that rare books and the libraries, public or private, in which they are kept are seen as suitable subjects for criminal endeavours, often involving murder? One writer has mused: 'The public image of the library is generally that of a quiet, comfortable, inviting place, a place where people read and study, and certainly a place where people and their belongings should be safe'. A book collector or bibliophile is often depicted as a scholarly person, perusing a recent desirable addition to a collection or working on the minutiae of bibliographic description. Is it because of these warm, comfortable images that the irruption of fictitious crime, often violent, often deadly, is so attractive to authors, especially Americans?

This talk will look at novels dealing with biblio-crimes, murder, theft, forgery and more. They range across time from Vespasian's Rome through to the modern day. Some detectives will be familiar: Marcus Didius Falco, Lord Peter Wimsey and Sherlock Homes, to name but three. Others may not be. The scenes of the crime are many and varied: private and institutional libraries, book shops, printeries and monasteries. The locales include Italy ancient and mediaeval, England, Australia, Ireland and the United States.

Graham Dudley has an Honours degree in history from the University of Melbourne. Graham is a retired public servant and librarian who is currently a volunteer at the Carmelite Theological Library in Middle Park. He is past President of the Friends of the Baillieu Library of which he was recently made a Life Member. Graham is also a Life Member of the Mechanics' Institutes of Victoria Inc. Graham has a long standing interest in crime fiction, especially involving libraries and the world of books. This talk will draw on works in his own extensive library.

Tuesday 23 April 2013
Friends of the Baillieu Library author's night
Leigh Scott Room, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 6.00pm

Dr Juliet Flesch: Discovering Life's Logic

The first proposal to establish a Medical School at the University of Melbourne was made by Anthony Brownless just 18 months after he joined the University Council in 1855. Before that, prospective medical students from Australia were obliged to travel to the United Kingdom for medical studies after they completed their Arts degrees. The arrival of George Britton Halford in Melbourne at the end of 1862 as Professor of Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology enabled them to study in Melbourne. Life's Logic, tells the story of the Department of Physiology at the University of Melbourne since its establishment in 1862. In her talk, Juliet Flesch will describe some of the people and discoveries that have made this department internationally renowned.

Juliet, who is a professional librarian, has worked at the University since 1978, when she was the foundation Principal Librarian (Collections). She is a Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, where she has worked as a librarian and Research Assistant. She was Executive Secretary of the Friends of the Baillieu Library for nine years. She is an Honorary Life Member of the Friends.

Tuesday 12 March 2013
Friends of the Baillieu Library Annual General Meeting and guest speaker
Leigh Scott Room, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 6.00pm

Dr Katrina Dean, University Archivist: Protest: Archives from the University of Melbourne

Following the Annual General Meeting, the University Archivist, Dr Katrina Dean, will present a talk on Protest: Archives from the University of Melbourne that will also serve as an introduction to the exhibition of materials from the University of Melbourne Archives currently on display in the exhibition space adjacent to the Leigh Scott Room.

From the 1960s, the growth of the social movements internationally and the public profile of student activism brought campuses to the very centre of protest. Immigration reform, draft resistance and the peace movement against the Vietnam War, Indigenous rights, women's rights, gay and lesbian liberation and the voicing of environmental concerns were all invigorated by people and societies on campus. As an educator, the University was also an incubator of student activism and was challenged by new forms of debate and democracy. This talk will explore the University of Melbourne Archives' collections that document some of the acts, events, and personalities of the University Melbourne in a wider landscape of protest from the 1960s to the 1980s. The talk will be followed by a tour of the exhibition in the Leigh Scott Gallery

Dr Katrina Dean was appointed University Archivist in 2011. She studied history at the University of Tasmania and the Australian National University and holds a PhD in the history of science from the University of Cambridge. She has worked at the National Archives of Australia and the British Library. She has published several articles on the history of science and on archives. A forthcoming book co-edited with Mirjam Brusius and Chitra Ramalingam William Henry Fox Talbot: Beyond Photography, is coming out with Yale University Press in 2013.