2014

Tuesday 14 October 2014
Friends of the Baillieu Library lecture

Leigh Scott Room, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 6.00pm

Robert Gordon Menzies: A man and his books

Robert Gordon Menzies (1894–1978) is best remembered as the founder of the Liberal Party and Australia's longest-serving prime minister, a role he occupied in two terms from 1939 to 1941 and 1949 to 1966. Menzies was also an alumnus of the University of Melbourne and, from 1967 to 1972, its chancellor. Menzies was also an avid book collector.

What do Menzies' books reveal about their owner? In this talk, Caitlin Stone and Jim Berryman will talk about Menzies' personal library, which was donated to the University of Melbourne in 1979. The collection, comprising over 4000 items, spans a lifetime of book collecting, with books ranging from Menzies' childhood to his final years. The library provides a unique insight into Menzies' tastes and interests, as well as his personal and professional networks. Based on our research examining the library and its contents, this talk will focus on some notable books from the collection, especially books of historical and biographical importance.

Monday 21 July 2014
Friends of the Baillieu Library Melbourne Rare Book Week exhibition tour and lecture 
Dulcie Hollyock Room, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 5.00pm

In the beginning: Gutenberg's Bible on view in the Baillieu Library

The Friends of the Baillieu Library have been offered an after-hours viewing of the Gutenberg Bible exhibition prior to our Melbourne Rare Book Week public function with Professor Stephen Knight talking on the Robin Hood myth.

Don't miss this rare chance to see an original Gutenberg Bible in Australia. Gutenberg was the first person in the West to create moveable type in the 1450s and sparked the information revolution that lead to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Now in The John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, this copy came from the library of book collector 2nd Earl Spencer who commissioned Matthew Flinders to circumnavigate Australia. The John Rylands Library, University of Manchester has lent this Gutenberg Bible to the University especially for the Melbourne Rare Book Fair and the Cultural Treasures Festival. 

Professor Stephen Knight: On Target Through Time: The Meanings of the Robin Hood Myth
Leigh Scott Room, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 6.30pm

Robin Hood is the archetype of the good outlaw, first famous in the late medieval period as the image of English yeoman liberty and his myth has survived to the present as a symbol of resistance to wrongful authority, across many changing times and social contexts. In recent years he has been cited with reference to President Obama, in the context of wealth redistribution, and even more remarkably, to Osama Bin Laden as an alleged agent of liberty in Russian-dominated Afghanistan.

In this talk, Stephen Knight will look at the main formations of the mythic identity of Robin Hood, in turn as forest yeoman, Earl of Huntington, Saxon nationalist and international liberal, with the overall purpose of charting briefly the rich and volatile history of this potent and essentially political myth.

Professor Stephen Knight is currently Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He worked for many years at the University of Sydney and was then Professor of English at Melbourne 1987–1992, before returning to Britain to work at De Montfort University and Cardiff University. He has written widely on cultural history and its social contexts across time, with studies on King Arthur, Merlin and crime fiction, as well as books and essays on the myth of Robin Hood.

Tuesday 24 June 2014

Friends of the Baillieu Library lecture

Leigh Scott Room, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 6.00pm

Philip G. Kent: The Great War and Its Aftermath:  The University of Melbourne Library

The second Librarian at the University of Melbourne was Edward Darling Ulrich MA.  Situated in the lineage between Edward Bromby and Leigh Scott, he held the post from 1916 to 1926. This was a difficult time for the University and for its library in the light of the Great War and the period that followed. In this talk, Philip Kent, the current University Librarian, continues his investigations into his predecessors, the challenges that they faced and the legacy they left for the University Library. Philip Kent took up appointment as University Librarian in March 2009.

Saturday 17 May 2014

Friends of the Baillieu Library seminar

Leigh Scott Room, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 1.30pm–4.30pm

Professor Margaret Manion AO and Professor Charles Zika: Aspects of the Kerry Stokes Collection of Illuminated Manuscripts

Professors Manion and Zika co-authored the splendid recently published work, Celebrating Word and Image, 1250–1600: Illuminated Manuscripts from the Kerry Stokes Collection (Fremantle Press, 2013).

Professor Margaret Manion: Hidden Treasures Come to Light: Illuminated Manuscripts in the Kerry Stokes Collection

The Kerry Stokes Collection is a private collection of impressive quality and magnitude. As well as splendid European, American, Australian, Asian and European paintings, sculptures, woodcuts, engravings, maps, documents and rare books, it includes a fast growing and fascinating group of Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts. This talk will look at a number of illuminated devotional manuscripts — several Books of Hours, a Breviary and a parchment triptych — that have recently been acquired by the Stokes Collection and are now the subject of continuing research.

The particular characteristics of these manuscripts will be discussed as well as some of the distinctive ways they enrich our knowledge of the history of French and Netherlandish book illumination in the late Medieval and early Renaissance (Early Modern) period.
Emeritus Professor Margaret Manion was Herald Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne, 1979–1995. One of Australia's leading art historians, she is an internationally recognised authority on medieval and Renaissance art, and on the art of illuminated manuscripts in particular.

Professor Charles Zika: Celebrating the Nuremberg Carnival: a Unique Insight into Late Medieval Festivity and Fashion in the 'Schembart' Book

The talk will look at the so-called Schembart Buch, a richly illustrated manuscript in the Kerry Stokes collection that presents an account of the annual Shrove Tuesday carnival parade that was held sixty-five times between 1449 and 1539. It will present the main features of this particular manuscript (c.1540) with reference to some of the other 80+ manuscripts held in depositories world-wide. It will also discuss the origins of the carnival, one of the highlights of the Nuremberg festive and cultural year, how it became so central to literary and performative culture as well as fashion, and how it was transformed from a celebration held in the city's streets and squares to one memorialized on paper.

Professor Charles Zika taught for many years in the History Department of the University of Melbourne, and is an internationally recognised authority on the cultural, religious and visual history of northern and central Europe in the late medieval and early modern periods. He is currently a Professorial Fellow in the University's School of Historical and Philosophical Studies and one of ten Chief Investigators in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, 1100-1800. 

Wednesday 16 April 2014

Friends of the Baillieu Library special exhibition viewing

Noel Shaw Gallery, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 4.00pm

Radicals, Slayers and Villains: Prints from the Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne

The Friends of the Baillieu Library have great pleasure in inviting you to a special viewing of the newly refurbished Noel Shaw Gallery followed by the official exhibition opening of Radicals, Slayers and Villains.  

Wednesday 9 April 2014

Friends of the Bailieu Library illustrated talk

ISB Meeting Room 2 (next to Rare Books) Matheson Library, Monash University (Clayton Campus), 4.30pm

Professor John Spiers: Just the Ticket! The Surprising Origins, Wonderful Life, and Shock Death of 19th Century Railway Library Fiction

An illustrated talk by Professor John Spiers (Institute of English Studies, University of London). Hosted by Monash University Library in conjunction with the Melbourne Bibliographical Circle. 

Wednesday 9 April 2014

Newman College public lecture

The Oratory, Newman College, University of Melbourne, 6.00pm

Professor Gerard Vaughan AM and Mr Ray Tonkin: The Urban Development of Melbourne: Have We Got It Right? Where To Now?

In this public 'conversation', which is the first of a trio to be held at Newman College over the next few months on the history and the future of the city of Melbourne, Professor Gerard Vaughan, former Director of the National Gallery of Victoria, and currently a member of the Australian Institute of Art History, The University of Melbourne, discusses with Ray Tonkin, former executive director of Heritage Victoria, the prospects and problems that confront us. 

Wednesday 12 February 2014
Friends of the Baillieu Library visit

Newman College, University of Melbourne, 3.00pm

Newman College – St Mary's Newman Academic Centre

From time to time, the Friends of the Baillieu Library arrange visits to other notable libraries in and around Melbourne. We are pleased to announce that a further visit has now been arranged to the St Mary's Newman Academic Centre, the combined library of St Mary's College and Newman College at the University of Melbourne.

The library was established by bringing together into one collection the Francis Frewin Library collection from St Mary's College and the Jeremiah Murphy Library collection from Newman College. It has a broad collection ranging from current textbooks to rare and historic books and manuscripts. Particular strengths of the collection include: law, fine arts, manuscript studies, poetry and literature, Irish studies, Australiana and theology. The general collection includes over 40,000 items.

Our host for the afternoon will be Angela Gehrig, Director of the St Mary's Newman Academic Centre. Members will be able to view a number of rare and interesting items held by the library, in particular a collection of Irish books, manuscripts and pamphlets. We will hear from Miriam O'Donovan (PhD candidate at University College Cork) who will be a Visiting Fellow in the library over the 2013-2014 summer period, about her research. Miriam will be transcribing song texts she has identified in the collection.

Tuesday 18 March 2014

Friends of the Baillieu Library Annual General Meeting and guest speaker

Leigh Scott Room, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, 6.00pm

Shane Carmody: Presenting Piranesi

After the Annual General Meeting Shane Carmody in which he will explain how the University Library and the State Library of Victoria between them have accumulated the greatest collection of Piranesi prints in Australia, and tell the story behind the decision to proceed with the exhibition Rome: Piranesi's Vision and associated events and publications.

Shane Carmody is a historian with a great love of libraries and archives. He has worked for the National Archives, the State Library of Victoria and the University of Melbourne Library. He has published on the history of Libraries and collections and presented at many conferences. Shane managed major exhibitions including The Medieval Imagination: Illuminated Manuscripts from Cambridge, Australia and New Zealand (2008) and Love and Devotion: From Persia and beyond (2012). Shane holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honours with a double major in History and Fine Arts from the University of Melbourne, and a Master of Arts from the University of Toronto.