News

Calling all engineers, scientists, artists, tech-heads, tinkerers, fixers and dreamers.

On Tuesday 3 December 2019 the University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) celebrated the conclusion of the official transfer to the University of the Australian Red Cross collection, 'Gift to the Nation'. The transfer was an enormous undertaking spanning five years and involved the rehousing and listing of the collection.

The upcoming Old Quad exhibition, Multivocal, will celebrate the creation, performance and experience of music at the University of Melbourne, past and present. Curated by Dr Heather Gaunt, this exhibition will showcase the cultural collections of the University that focus on music in its many forms. The objects in the exhibition provide a platform for contemporary responses to a long history of musical activity in this place, in the form of new commissions and performance-based events.

#ColourOurCollections is a social media colouring festival launched by The New York Academy of Medicine Library in 2016. Libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions around the world share free coloring content using materials from their collections and invite their followers to color and get creative with their collections.

The University of Melbourne welcomes the appointment of Julie Banks as Head of Strategic Collections. This is a key role in the new Museum and Collections Department and integral to delivering the University of Melbourne’s Cultural Commons vision.

Ruby Kerrison, a Bachelor of Arts student majoring in Australian Indigenous Studies and Gender Studies at the University of Melbourne, and 2019 recipient of the IMAC Award has recently commenced her month-long placement at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

Shorts made at film school have played an iconic role in the history of Australian cinema, revealing fresh talents, winning prestigious awards and launching some big international careers. But where do you find those films now, especially the ones made back in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and even 90s before everything was available on YouTube and Vimeo?

There are only two weeks left to experience the Noel Shaw Gallery’s current exhibition, Horizon lines: the ambitions of a print collection. Showcasing works from renowned European print makers such as Albrecht Dürer, Adriaen van Ostade and Rembrandt, the exhibition celebrates some of the significant pieces within the Baillieu Library Print Collection and helps students connect to the cultural history of their institution.

The 2020 Miegunyah Writer’s Fellowship is part of a large-scale multidisciplinary exhibition project set to open at the Ian Potter Museum of Art in 2022. Grounded in the material held in the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Collection, the holdings of Indigenous art in the University Art Collection, and historical and contemporary art, the exhibition (working title Eucalypt) will investigate and explore the eucalyptus; charting our physical and emotional responses to this loaded Australian symbol, which has been ubiquitous across our continent and its diverse environments for thousands of years.

A two-day pop-up exhibition held at the Grainger Museum in collaboration with CLINKproject6 and the Melbourne Contemporary Jewellery and Object Biennial, titled Radiant Pavilion, was voted the People’s Choice Award winner by Biennial visitors.

Rose Hiscock has been appointed Director, University Museums and Collections at the University of Melbourne. This new role will provide guidance and coordination to the University’s museums and galleries to showcase the University’s great cultural collections.

In 1876 the Swiss-born landscape artist Louis Buvelot spent time sketching around Bacchus Marsh. Upon his return to his Melbourne studio, he painted two views of Goodman’s Creek: one is held in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, while the other was recently acquired for the University Art Collection with funds provided by the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Fund.

Meg Hibbert, a student enrolled in the Museums and Collection Projects Program has, with Jane Wilson, curated this exhibition The Roots of Burnley: Exploring a long history of significance to the Victorian community, designed to showcase the Burnley gardens and document the history of the Burnley campus of the University in the Victorian landscape.

We are pleased to announce that Ruby Kerrison, a Bachelor of Arts student majoring in Australian Indigenous Studies and Gender Studies was recently selected as the Melbourne recipient of this year’s  International Museums and Collections Award. Ruby is delighted to have been chosen for the prestigious Award and will commence her month-long placement at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom in early 2020.

Frances Robson, a masters of museum studies student from the University of Sydney, has recently completed an internship with the Melbourne School of Engineering collections. Frances completed documentation of a photograph album compiled by engineering student Athol Bennett in 1901-1903, now held in the Surveying & Geomatic Engineering Collection. The album contains photographs of the recently completed Engineering Building, student activities on campus, excursions to mines and lighthouses, and photographs of the expedition to Lake Eyre in 1901, led by geology professor John Walter Gregory. A related album, created by fellow student James Robert Valentine Anderson, held in Special Collections at the Baillieu Library, shares several photos with the Bennett album.

In early August, the Victorian School of Forestry (VSF) Herbarium was transferred from the University's Creswick campus to The University of Melbourne Herbarium (MELU) in Parkville. With the incorporation of this collection, a significant milestone is achieved; all the University herbaria, including the Burnley Horticultural College and Victorian School of Forestry herbaria, now form a single collection for the first time. The specimens will be curated and digitised by staff and student volunteers working in The University of Melbourne Herbarium and made available online via Herbarium Collection Online.

Working with conservators from Grimwade Conservation Services, University of Melbourne conservation student Laura Daenke has just completed a major conservation treatment of Albrecht Durer’s early woodcut print, The Knight and the lansquenet (c. 1496), from the Baillieu Library Print Collection.

In October, Discover the Digital Archive will be launched at Old Quad providing visitors with unprecedented access to the VCA Film and Television Digital Archive, a newly presented collection that has never before been accessible to the wider public.

University of Birmingham student Erin Holder recently completed four weeks working with the University of Melbourne's collections as the 2019 recipient of the International Museums and Collections Award. Below Erin tells us about some of the highlights of her time in Melbourne.

The University’s annual Open Day, to be held on Sunday 19 August, will once again provide the opportunity for visitors to explore many of the museums and collections on the Parkville campus.

Dr Nanette Carter and Robyn Oswald-Jacobs were recently announced as the 2019 joint recipients of the Redmond Barry Fellowship at a ceremony held at the State Library of Victoria.

The Grainger Museum has a rich collection of material relating to the Dolmetsch family, who were pioneers in early music performance and instrument creation.

Erin Holder, the UK recipient of the 2019 International Museums and Collections Award (IMAC Award), will commence her month-long placement with the museums and collections on campus in late July.

A new exhibition set to open on the 31 July in the Noel Shaw Gallery will showcase over 65 works from the Baillieu Library’s outstanding Print Collection. Horizon lines: The ambitions of a print collection focuses on Northern and Italian Renaissance printmakers, such as Albrecht Dürer, and Dutch Republic artists, including Rembrandt, as well as the British etching revival.

University of Melbourne students are invited to apply for the prestigious 2019 International Museums and Collections (IMAC) Award.

The University of Melbourne Herbarium (MELU) is currently hosting a Citizen Science expedition entitled Monocotyledons of the Burnley Horticultural College Collection. The expedition can be accessed on the Atlas of Living Australia DigiVol platform.

The newly renovated Old Quad is pleased to bring Imogen Colton on board as a Research Intern for the next ten weeks. In keeping with the strategy to engage the community with the ceremonial heart of the University, student-led research will bring to life the history of Old Quad.

Originally curated for the Medical History Museum, The Art of Healing: Australian Indigenous bush medicine follows the premise of Tjukurrpa (dreaming). It looks at traditional Indigenous healing practice as past, present and future simultaneously. It presents examples of healing practice from the many distinct and varied Indigenous communities throughout Australia through contemporary art practice.

A new exhibition opened on the 30 May 2019 in the Professor Sir Joseph Burke Gallery (Burke Gallery), at Trinity College. Timed as part of the University’s broader activities around National Reconciliation Week (27 May to 3 June), Revealed: Arnhem Land Barks from the Anita Castan Collection – Yirrkala and Milingimbishowcases an extraordinary collection of bark paintings acquired in the mid-1960s by the young American collector, Kenneth Neybert.

Life in a floating world: Japanese Ukiyo-e in the University of Melbourne’s Print Collection is the name of a new display in University House at the Woodward Centre. Conceived and arranged by Museums and Collections student intern, Mona Mi, this exhibition of seven Japanese woodcuts from the Edo period comprises prints produced by several Japanese Ukiyo-e artists from the early 18th century to the mid 19th century from the University of Melbourne’s Baillieu Library Print Collection.

The Medical History Museum is pleased to announce that a selection of twenty works from the Art of Healing: Australian Indigenous Bush Medicine exhibition is touring internationally to Bush House, King’s College, London (15 May to 28 June 2019) and The Berlin Museum of Medical History of the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (24 October 2019 to 2 February 2020).

A recent project to translate the Danish-language letters from Karen Holten to Percy Grainger by intern Regitze Phil, has prompted the search for other signs of Karen within the collections held by the Grainger Museum. Karen was a Danish-born pianist who was Grainger’s lover for eight years during the time he lived in London. They were to remain friends until Karen's death in 1953.

Two new displays have been installed in the Melbourne School of Engineering (MSE), showcasing the School’s cultural collections. A display in the MSE offices in the South Wing of the Old Engineering Building (Building 173) presents objects and stories from the late 19th century to the present, highlighting engineering teaching over that period. From an initial 15 students in 1861, the school taught over 13,000 students in 2018.

Dr Ursula Hoff bequeathed funds to the University of Melbourne to establish a Fellowship for the study and promotion of prints held in the print collections of theUniversity of Melbourne and the National Gallery of Victoria. In recognition of Dr Hoff’s scholarly and professional achievements, the Fellowship is awarded annually to a candidate displaying a commitment to research into prints, the history of print collecting and the scholarly activities of museums and universities.

2019 marks the centenary anniversary of the Bauhaus school of art and design, established first in Weimar, Germany 1919-1933. The University of Melbourne Archives has recently updated the finding aid to the collection of Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, one of the early artists of the Bauhaus movement. After being deported to Melbourne as an enemy alien and interned in camps in Victoria, Hirschfeld-Mack held the position of art master at Geelong Grammar School and later taught at the University of Melbourne and at Kew Kindergarten College.

Commissioned to celebrate the re-launch of the historic Old Quad, a large-scale stained-glass work has been created by artist Tom Nicholson and stained-glass artisan Geoffrey Wallace. Towards a glass monument comprises two screens of stained glass, each measuring over four metres in length and five metres in height, as well as six cast bronze plaques providing context for the piece and its history.

Erin Holder has recently been selected as the UK recipient of the 2019 International Museums and Collections Award. Currently studying for her Bachelor of Arts (Hons. History) at the University of Birmingham, Erin will be coming to Melbourne in late July. During her month-long placement, Erin will work with museum and collection professionals on a range of projects that will develop her collection management and curatorial skills across a selection of the University’s cultural collections. Erin also has a background in music and is interested in exploring the way folk music develops and enhances cultural heritage, and so is especially looking forward to discovering the unique collections at the Grainger Museum. Through her placement at Melbourne Erin will have the opportunity to experience different facets of collection management, curating and public programs within an international context. Of her upcoming stay she commented:

The Veterinary Anatomy Collection has moved from its former home on Flemington Road to state-of-the-art teaching facilities located on basement level 1 of the newly opened WEBS building on Royal Parade. Specimens are now located in the Object Based Learning Area (OBLA) and in display cases surrounding the informal learning area on this level. These specimens have been developed by the Vet School or have been donated from a range of other collections, both within and external to the University, and include preserved tissues in pots, bones, articulated skeletons and models. New specimens continue to be developed in the Anatomy laboratory, based on donated tissues. It is intended that 3D printing for model construction will be further utilised in the future.

With its iconic archways and bold architectural presence, Old Quad is the oldest building on the Parkville campus and endures as the strongest connection to the University’s fledgling years. For the past 164 years the building has adapted with each new era while standing firm in the heart of the campus both in a geographical and historical sense.

Het Groote tafereel der dwaasheid or the ‘Great mirror of folly’ as it is known in English, is a unique Amsterdam publication complied around the year 1720, by an unnamed publisher, as a record of the aftermath of the West’s first stock market crash. No two volumes of this book are the same because different ephemeral items such as the prints, songs, poetry and broadsides which proliferated that year, were gathered up into bindings of varied arrangements and contents. The resulting book is something akin to a kaleidoscopic view of the financial misadventures of Europe in the 18th century.

In 2019 the Ian Potter Museum of Art embarks on a year of significant transformation. Key to this change will be an ambitious redevelopment by internationally renowned firm Wood Marsh Architecture, with the generous support of the Ian Potter Foundation. This major capital works project will see an expansion of the Museum’s footprint through the creation of teaching studios for object-based learning from the University Art Collection, a public programs space, a collections gallery, and a teaching gallery (for curriculum-based collection displays). Due for launch in mid-2020, the Potter will also have a new entrance on the University’s campus, a café with outdoor area, and an elegant foyer designed to host functions and opening events.

The recent acquisition of Melbourne from the Botanical Gardens (1865) by British artist Henry Gritten for the University of Melbourne Art Collection has provided an important opportunity for some collaborative research between the Grimwade Center for Cultural Material Conservation conservators and the Grimwade Collection Curator at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, Alisa Bunbury.

We are pleased to introduce our Grainger Museum Composer in Residence, Kate Tempany, who will be engaging with the forthcoming exhibition, How it plays: Innovations in percussion.

The John Truscott Fellowship is a partnership of the John Truscott Design Foundation (JTDF) and the University of Melbourne. The Fellowship is awarded to a scholar or writer to prepare a manuscript biography of John Truscott (1936 – 1993), known for his celebrated, multi-faceted career covering numerous creative disciplines.

The latest issue of the University of Melbourne Collections magazine (issue 23, December 2018) has an interesting article about Dr Georgina Sweet and her link with the Tiegs Zoology Museum. The article includes the fact that a lectern was made in 1924 to commemorate Dr Sweet's contribution to the Biology Department.

The VCA Digital Archive Project has released a series of articles that respond thematically to the depth and breadth of the VCA Film and Television Archive collection, which will be available for research from mid-2019. The articles were commissioned as part of a grant from the University of Melbourne Student Services Amenities Fee. University of Melbourne staff and students and some industry people dipped into the Archive and watched films based on themes. The idea was to use the collection as stimulus in which to curate and create. Some responses are completely creative, others are reviews, others are word art pieces. The latest article exploring the theme of life after death is now available.

The 2019 Projects List along with information on how to apply is now available via the Museums and Collections Projects Program (MCPP) website. The MCPP offers students, alumni and other interested individuals the opportunity to work behind the scenes with the University's outstanding museums and cultural collections. Engaging with a wide range of collections, the projects offered this year include cataloguing and research, preventative conservation, public programs, curation and exhibition development.

Applications are now open for the 2019 Redmond Barry Fellowship - a partnership between the University of Melbourne and the State Library of Victoria. Named in honour of the founder of both institutions, the first Fellowship was awarded to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stones for both institutions on 3 July 1854. The Fellowship facilitates scholarly research and the production of works of literature utilising the superb collections of the two institutions. Up to $20,000 shall be awarded to assist with travel, living and research expenses.

This photograph shows X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (XRF) being undertaken on an item from the Grainger Museum collection during conservation treatment. This process enables testing for possible traces of arsenic and mercury, as well as other metals that may have been used in their making. The item in treatment, a black satin and ermine evening gown once belonging to Rose Grainger, is now on display as part of the Grainger Museum’s current exhibition, Objects of Fame: Nellie Melba and Percy Grainger. University of Melbourne student conservator Rachel Jones undertook treatment work on this fascinating object as part of a major treatment project in collaboration with the Grainger Museum. You can read about Rachel's project on the Grimwade Centre blog.

A display on the Great Melbourne Telescope has been installed on Level 1 of Arts West. The Great Melbourne Telescope was conceived by Professor William Parkinson Wilson, the first professor of mathematics at the University of Melbourne. Designed by a committee of the Royal Society of London, the huge telescope was commissioned at Melbourne Observatory in 1869, to observe the nebulae of the southern hemisphere. The display, commemorating the 150th anniversary, includes two telescopes from theSurveying and Geomatic Engineering Collection, which had formerly been used at the Williamstown Observatory and subsequently passed to Professor Wilson, and publications on the Great Melbourne Telescope from the Baillieu Library's Special Collections.

The Women’s: carers, advocates and reformers exhibition, to be held 18 April to 2 November 2019 at the Medical History Museum, and accompanying catalogue will highlight items from the Women’s Hospital Historic and Archive collection, Medical History Museum collection and Public Records Office. The exhibition  explore the role of key individuals, public education and health campaigns, public policy and research from the first hospital site to its current location. It will also acknowledge the stories and traditions of the traditional owners.

A project is underway to develop more detailed documentation on the Electrical Engineering Education Collection. Dr John McCutchan, former head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, has assisted with the identification and significance of over 200 items in the collection. John McCutchan was a student in electrical engineering in the department following World War II and, following five years working in England, returned to be a lecturer in the department in 1958. The collection has been photographed and a new spreadsheet created, ready for transfer to a more substantial database. Further documentation of the collection with former staff is underway.

In the will of Sir Russell Grimwade (1879-1955), he allowed the University of Melbourne to spend bequeathed funds on ‘books, pictures and furniture’. His intention was to further furnish Miegunyah, the Toorak house his wife Mab subsequently left to the University to be used, in part, as a house museum. This use proved impossible and Miegunyah was sold with the income forming the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Fund. Over the last year, this Fund has supported the acquisition of thirteen works of art, carefully selected to enhance the Grimwade Collection of art and books relating to early Australia.

Sakina Nomanbhoy is currently completing her Honours in Art History at the University of Melbourne, and as the 2018 recipient of the IMaC Award has recently commenced her month-long placement at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Over the next month she will be working closely with collections staff on projects across their museums and cultural collections.

The limited edition exhibition catalogue Objects of Fame: Nellie Melba & Percy Grainger is now available for purchase at the Grainger Museum and online.

The Three Graces, housed in the Baillieu Library Print Collection, is a 1776 print by Thomas Watson (1750-1781) after a 1773 painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). The large print was created using the mezzotint method. Mezzotint involves scraping and polishing the surface of a copper or steel plate engraving to create different tones with both soft shades and rich blacks. This technique was used often in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries for the reproduction of paintings, particularly portraits.

A public research query at the Grainger Museum recently turned up a fascinating experiment in keeping time for Grainger Curator Heather Gaunt when she discovered a Pinfold’s patent silent gravity metronome.

With rising temperatures, so too come the collective sighs from university students as they put the final touches on assignments, sit exams and prepare to receive their hard-earned degrees. When this year’s cohort take the stage in December all eyes will undoubtedly be drawn to the University of Melbourne's ceremonial mace, which was recently conserved by Grimwade Centre for Cultural Material Conservation objects conservator, Evan Tindal.

The winners of the Dark Imaginings: Gothic Tales of Wonder micro-story competition are: The Fish-Men by Victor Hu (1st), Wisteria by Lily Laycock (2nd) and The Monster which Haunted Belle Tarney (3rd) by Andreas Katsineris-Paine. To read their prize-winning gothic stories of just 300 words (or less), see the University’s student magazine Farrago, which kindly agreed to partner the competition, devised to involve University of Melbourne student writers in this year’s exhibition of the same name which was held in the Noel Shaw Gallery, Baillieu Library.

With an estimated 150,000 specimens, the University of Melbourne Herbarium (MELU), is the largest university herbarium in Australia, and its online collection is now freely available to the public for the first time.

Congratulations to Lachlan Glanville and Fiona Ross of the University of Melbourne Archives, whose articles in The Conversation have been recognised by the presenting of Mander Jones Awards by the Australian Society of Archivists. These awards recognise writing about archives for a general audience or an audience that is rarely exposed to archival thinking. Both articles highlight the many human interactions and range of emotions which are reflected in records. They also give an insight into what it is like to work with very personal records and suggest many ways in which they might be valued by researchers.

Australian Aboriginal cultural heritage objects from the University of Melbourne’s globally significant Donald Thomson anthropological collection have gone on display for the first time in the Arts West Gallery. The Awakenexhibition includes items from the collection gathered by Donald Thomson from the diverse communities of Arnhem Land, Cape York, and the Western and Central Deserts during the University of Melbourne anthropologist's 50-year career.

A new display of material from the Dookie Campus Historical Collection was recently installed in the museum building at the University of Melbourne’s Dookie campus for the campus' annual Open Day. A popular attraction with Open Day visitors, the new display includes a range of documents, photographs and objects that chronicle the 130 years of agricultural education at Dookie. Highlights include items related to the former Principal and internationally renowned wheat breeding expert Hugh Pye, the introduction of education programs for women in 1919, and sporting and social memorabilia.

Conservators are often engaged by collection caretakers to conduct surveys of their collection in order to assess the condition of items and provide recommendations for their continued care.

The Ian Potter Museum of Art is pleased to announce Dr Jane Eckett as the recipient of the Ursula Hoff Fellowship for 2018. Dr Ursula Hoff bequeathed funds to the University of Melbourne to establish a Fellowship for the study and promotion of prints held in the print collections of the University of Melbourne and the National Gallery of Victoria. In recognition of Dr Hoff’s scholarly and professional achievements, the Fellowship is awarded annually to a candidate displaying a commitment to research into prints, the history of print collecting and the scholarly activities of museums and universities. The Ursula Hoff Fellow is provided research access to collections relevant to their research at the University of Melbourne and the National Gallery of Victoria.

Alice O'Rourke, Masters in Art History and Curating student at the University of Birmingham and the UK recipient of the 2018 International Museums and Collections Award, has curated a new themed display on the ground floor of the Chemistry Building. The exhibition features various molecular models which assist chemistry students and academics to visualise how molecules and atoms occupy space and link together.

Prior to 1959, the University Library’s Rare Books Collectionwas relatively small. The first significant contribution to the collection was the George McArthur bequest, which was made in 1903. George McArthur (1842-1903) donated 'the whole of his books' to the University of Melbourne, which involved some 2,500 volumes. These books covered topics such as Australian exploration, mining history, typography, and early printing. The bequest made up around ten percent of the Library’s rare cultural materials at the time, and led the way forward to allow for the collection to develop. While George McArthur’s contribution was a start in the right direction, the Library’s Rare Books Collection has become what it is today due to the generous donations made by Dr J. Orde Poynton over the 1960s and 1970s. MoreImage: Shelves within the University Library's Rare Book Room

The University of Melbourne’s Rare Books Collection holds around 30 incunabula, or early printed books. ‘Incunabula’ is a term given to books produced in the cradle days of book printing, generally pre-1500, and they are distinct from manuscripts, which are hand-written. One of the University’s incunabula was published in 1489 and was authored by Jean (Johannes) Charlier de Gerson (1363-1429), a French scholar devoted to the study of the Catholic Church, who published extensively throughout his life. The title Opera means ‘Work’, and the book appears to be one of three volumes comprising a treatise on the Catholic Church. This first volume is subtitled Prima pars operii Johannes Gerson, meaning ‘The first part of the works of Johannes Gerson.’

Sakina Nomanbhoy, a Bachelor of Arts student studying for her Honours in Art History was recently selected as the Melbourne recipient of the International Museums and Collections Award.

An important historic telescope has been identified in the Surveying and Geomatics Engineering Collection in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Melbourne. It is a portable transit telescope, 77 cm in length, marked ‘Potter, London’.

Over the past three months conservators at the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation (GCCMC) have been treating nine Japanese woodblock prints from the Baillieu Library Print Collection withthe support of the Miegunyah Fund. This selection of colourful prints from the Edo period (are to be used for teaching at the University of Melbourne in semester two, 2018. Conservation treatment therefore focused on improving the stability and visual appearance of the works for safe handling and display.

VCA Film and Television is Australia's oldest film school, housing an audiovisual collection dating back to 1967. The VCA Digital Archive Project has been underway since 2015, aimed at unlocking the VCA Film and Television Archive for the first time to create new intersections between expert knowledge, curatorial practice and student-generated content.

The Tiegs Museum, which is dedicated to the display of zoological specimens, has a new cabinet on display. Well, actually it is an old cabinet. The explanation is that the Tiegs Museum was originally housed in the Baldwin Spencer Building, using wooden cabinets for display. These were replaced when the museum moved to the then new Zoology building (now BioSciences 4) in 1989. However, one of the old cabinets was kept and used for the storage of teaching material elsewhere in the building.

Australian composer Margaret Sutherland AO OBE (1897-1984) was one of the most innovative and influential composers of the first half of the twentieth century. She produced around 200 works in her lifetime, mostly chamber and vocal/choral works, but also orchestral works, four for theatre and one opera. Margaret Sutherland was also a tireless advocate for composers and for the arts in general in Australia. In her desire to be both serious composer and mother, Sutherland was atypical of her era, and faced particular challenges, public and private, in blending these roles.

University of Melbourne students are invited to apply for the prestigious 2018 International Museums and Collections (IMAC) Award.

Alice O'Rourke, the UK recipient of the 2018 International Museums and Collections Award (IMAC Award), will commence her placement with the Museums and Collections Unit in early August. Currently completing her Masters in Art History and Curating at the University of Birmingham, Alice is very much looking forward to her four week placement at the University.

A bizarre wagon surmounted by a seven-headed beast makes its way across the centre of a tumultuous image. The grotesque central motif of this 1621 broadsheet must have lured the reader to look at its bizarre details and to read the text below, or to listen to someone else read it aloud. Viewers of the time would immediately have associated this scene with the seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse in the New Testament Book of Revelation, and have understood that this was a work of political and religious propaganda.

In August 1968, the Soviet Union sent troops into Czechoslovakia to end the liberalising regime of Alexander Dubcek; the incident and its aftermath became known as the Prague Spring. The events in the Soviet bloc were part of an international wave of uprisings and movements throughout 1968 that would have a profound impact on the Australian Left. The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) was one of the few in the international movement to publicly condemn the Soviet action. CPA leader Bernie Taft knew Dubcek personally and was instrumental in convincing the Party to take such a stand.

An exciting project afoot is a collaboration between the University of Melbourne and the University of Manchester to connect these two geographically distant, culturally rich collections. Face-to-face encounters have already taken place between scholars and special collections staff through two workshops: Manchester in July 2017 and Melbourne in April 2018. These workshops saw specialists come together and exchange ideas about the endlessly interesting works of art, books, textiles, maps and objects located in these cities.

Dr Richard Gillespie, an honorary fellow in the University of Melbourne's School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, has been cataloguing, rehousing and adding further material to the Computing and Information Systems Heritage Collection, which captures many aspects of the history of computing at the University. This builds on the work undertaken by the Computing and Information Systems History Team over the past twenty years.

A collaboration between the Melbourne School of Design, Parallel Practice, the Faculty of Fine Art and Music, SoundLab and the Grainger Museum will investigate how an open-air courtyard can be transformed into sound performance and recording space.

Just four weeks remain for University of Melbourne students to write and submit a Gothic story in 300 words, or less; entries close on 31 July. Professor Peter Otto and Dr Elizabeth MacFarlane have kindly agreed to act as judges. The competition is associated with the Dark Imaginings exhibition in the Noel Shaw Gallery, Baillieu Library, which also closes at the end of this month.

Katarina Paseta has been announced as the new collection manager at Buxton Contemporary. Katarina has more than 20 years of experience working in leading public and university art museums and galleries specialising in collection and exhibition management, registration and curatorship.

Dr Ursula Hoff bequeathed funds to the University of Melbourne to establish a Fellowship for the study and promotion of prints held in the print collections of the University of Melbourne and the National Gallery of Victoria. In recognition of Dr Hoff’s scholarly and professional achievements, the Fellowship is awarded annually to a candidate displaying a commitment to research into prints, the history of print collecting and the scholarly activities of museums and universities.

The Medical History Museum was recently awarded a grant from the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Fund for the conservation of an important 1905 framed photograph of medical students that includes Gordon Clunes Mathison, the first Director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. The conservation of the photograph will add to the collection of images the Medical History Museum has of Mathison, an internationally acclaimed scientist and medical researcher who was killed at Gallipoli in 1915.

Angeletta Leggio recently commenced at the University of Melbourne in the newly created position of Manager, Cultural Collections (University Archivist) within Scholarly Services.

Situated on the University of Melbourne grounds, The Dax Centre provides University students and staff, as well as the general public, with access to the Cunningham Dax Collection of art created by individuals who have experienced mental health issues.

Two students in the Museums and Collections Projects Program, Crystal Baptist and Sharon Wong, are working on a project in the Grainger Museum with Curator Heather Gaunt, to rehouse the large collection of hats.

A team of four conservators from the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation recently completed comprehensive cleaning of the English Room Rare Book Collection at the Baillieu Library.

The Ian Potter Museum of Art is offering six competitive Awards of $1500 each to University of Melbourne students across all disciplines, for small projects focused on The Russell and Mab Grimwade ‘Miegunyah’ Collection.

The University of Melbourne provides an authentic setting in the return of the ABC’s popular Jack Irish thriller series. The University’s iconic buildings create an impressive backdrop, with plot clues leading to the School of Chemistry, in an episode scheduled for broadcast later this year. The School of Chemistry Collection will be on show, with items from the collection made available during filming within the Chemistry Building. Items including a collection of crystals and other technical instruments lent authenticity to the production.

The University of Melbourne Herbarium recently commenced a digitisation project that will substantially increase access to some of the Herbarium’s most significant late 19th and early 20th century collections. The project will entail the generation of high-resolution digital images of 3,000 objects of national and international significance, including the Herbarium’s important collection of European botanical models dating from the early 1900s.

It is widely accepted that Tarot cards developed in Italy in the 15th century. They sprang out of the playing card tradition and the first engraved images, known as the Tarocci, were initially attributed to the Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna.

A team of four engineering students chose to undertake their group Capstone Project in the Department of Mechanical Engineering with the Grainger Museum in Semester 1 2018. The project was an attempt to recreate Percy Grainger’s player piano electronic experiments with three Solovoxes, in order to give visitors to the Synthesizers: Sound of the Future exhibition an opportunity to understand aspects of Grainger’s 1950 experiment in a tangible way.

The Baillieu Library Print Collection was recently awarded a grant from the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Fund for the conservation treatment of 11 significant prints. This conservation work will allow these prints to go on display as part of a 2019 exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Harold Wright Scholarship.

Alice O’Rourke has recently been selected as the UK recipient of the 2018 International Museums and Collections Award. Currently studying for her Masters in Art History and Curating at the University of Birmingham, she will come to Melbourne in August. During her month-long placement, Alice will work closely with museum professionals and be able to develop collection management and curatorial skills across a range of collections.

Science Gallery Melbourne is one step closer to building its new home in Australia's leading innovation precinct, with planning approval received last week. The new building will be located at the site of the old Royal Women's Hospital on the corner of Grattan and Swanston streets in Carlton, as part of the University of Melbourne Carlton Connect Initiative. Construction of the new building will commence in mid-2018, with doors set to open in 2020.

Drawing workshops run by the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) with the University’s  museums and collections provides an important means to hone artistic skills. Students participating in the workshops recently visited the Medical History Museum, the Noel Shaw Gallery Dark imaginings exhibition, the Baillieu Library Print Collection and the Grainger Museum to draw objects on display, as well as items that had been brought out from storage.

At first glance, playing cards may seem a novel addition to the Baillieu Library Print Collection, yet playing cards are some of the earliest printed images produced in Europe and they convey a world of information about art and society. Piquet is a game rather like euchre which uses 32 cards instead of the regular 52 deck. The set of cards was acquired to provide students of printmaking studies a practical example of the use and application of colour with stencil, but they are also of interest to students of history and psychology.

The Medical History Museum at the University of Melbourne recently opened its new exhibition The art of healing: Australian Indigenous traditional healing practice. The exhibition presents examples of traditional Indigenous healing practice from the many distinct and varied Indigenous communities throughout Australia. These are shown through contemporary art practice and examples of plants.

Applications are now open for the 2018 Redmond Barry Fellowship - a partnership between the University of Melbourne and the State Library of Victoria. Named in honour of the founder of both institutions, the first Fellowship was awarded to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stones for both institutions on 3 July 1854. The Fellowship facilitates scholarly research and the production of works of literature utilising the superb collections of the two institutions. Up to $20,000 shall be awarded to assist with travel, living and research expenses.

Rohan Long has been appointed the new curator of the Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology. Holding one of Australia's largest collections of real human tissue specimens and historical anatomical models, the Museum provides valuable educational resources for University of Melbourne students in the medical and related anatomical disciplines.

The Museums and Collections of the University of Melbourne are an immensely valuable resource for students and academics across a range of disciplines. The Grainger Museum, like the other museums and collections across campus, frequently provides access to collections for specific teaching purposes, as can be seen on the Museum’s Education page.

The University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) is delighted to announce the appointment of Lachlan Glanville as its first full-time continuing Digital Archivist. His new role combines knowledge of archival theory and systems with the skills of hands-on digital preservation and problem solving.

According to Homer, there existed a tribe of Pygmies, or diminutive people one-and-a-half feet tall, who were constantly at war with cranes (The Iliad Book III). This Greek myth recounts how these Pygmies lived in caves and rode about on rams. Annually the tribe partook in a great war with the cranes, with the objective to steal and eat many crane eggs and chicks, thereby keeping the vicious crane population in check.

The 2018 Projects List along with information on how to apply is now available via the Museums and Collections Projects Program (MCPP) website. The MCPP offers students, alumni and other interested individuals the opportunity to work behind the scenes with the University's museums and cultural collections.

In November 2017 the Ian Potter Museum of Art acquired at auction a rare and early drawing of an Aboriginal warrior bearing a shield and club by the French artist Nicolas-Martin Petit.

It is always satisfying to finally identify works of art in the collection that have otherwise remained cloaked in mystery. Such is the case with a group of 20 etchings and engravings in the Baillieu Library Print Collection, which remained unidentified for decades, until now.

Buxton Contemporary, a new gallery located at the University of Melbourne’s Southbank Campus, home to the Victorian College of the Arts, will open to the public in March.

A portrait of Dame Nellie Melba, one of the largest and most dramatic paintings in the Grainger Museum Collection, is currently on loan to the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Canberra, for Cartier: The Exhibition.

The first weeks of semester one 2018 will see three new exhibitions open across the Parkville campus. Dark imaginings: Gothic tales of wonder will be the first on 1 March at the Noel Shaw Gallery, Baillieu Library. Exploring the expression of the Gothic from the mid-18th to the mid-19th centuries, this fascinating exhibition will mark several important gothic literary anniversaries.

The Baillieu Library Print Collection has added new pages to its website, including an online booking form for class visits during the academic year. Alongside the new education page, there is now a research page and a gallery of highlights which help to bring these meaningful works of art all the closer to the fingertips.

Current Faculty of Fine Arts and Music postgraduate student, Lewis Ingham, has been appointed as the Grainger Museum Composer in Residence for 2018. This year’s Composer Residency focusses on the creation of a soundscape for the forthcoming Grainger Museum exhibition Objects of Fame: Nellie Melba and Percy Grainger.

The University of Melbourne’s Digitisation Centre recently digitised over 1100 black and white photographs from the Commercial Travellers' Association collection held by the University of Melbourne Archives. Dating from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, these images depict popular Australian sights and holiday destinations of the time. Now all available online, the images have been catalogued by two student volunteers who have captured the place and date for the majority of the photographs where known.

This year the Museums and Collections Projects Program (MCPP) will again be offering students, alumni and other interested individuals the opportunity to work behind the scenes with the University's museums and cultural collections. The projects are carefully designed to provide engaging, specialized experiences that have real value to participants through the acquisition of new vocational skills and the advancing of professional development and networks.

Funding from the Miegunyah bequest has enabled conservation treatments of several rare prints from the Baillieu Library's Print Collection. The group of works selected for conservation are those frequently requested for Renaissance and Baroque classes taught at the University.

Clare Fuery-Jones, a third year Bachelor of Arts student majoring in Art History and Philosophy at the University of Melbourne and 2017 recipient of the International Museums and Collections Award, recently commenced her month-long placement at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Alisa Bunbury recently commenced as the new Grimwade Collection curator at the Ian Potter Museum of Art. Alisa has been Curator of Prints and Drawings at the NGV since 2002 and prior to that was Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the Art Gallery of South Australia. In 1998 Alisa was Harold Wright Scholar at the British Museum, after completing a Masters degree and Postgraduate Diploma in Art Curatorial Studies, both at the University of Melbourne. Having curated many exhibitions presenting art ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary Australian works on paper, in the last decade Alisa has specialised in early colonial Australian art.

The Grainger Museum announced its 2018 temporary exhibitions program at an event recently held for members and  supporters. Two exhibitions, Synthesizers: Sound of the Future and Objects of Fame: Nellie Melba and Percy Grainger, will complement the permanent displays of the Museum over the course of the year. The Museum will be collaborating closely with external organisations for both exhibitions, including the Arts Centre Melbourne and the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio.

The Ed Muirhead Physics Museum has recently been revitalised through the generosity of the Laby Foundation. The revamped museum includes new displays with redesigned cabinets telling the stories of eminent University of Melbourne scientist Dr Jean Laby and theoretical physicist William Sutherland.

Managed by the Ian Potter Museum of Art as part of the University of Melbourne Art Collection, the Leonhard Adam Collection of International Indigenous Culture includes items from Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Asia, America and Africa. It was formed largely by Dr Leonhard Adam, a distinguished scholar and lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Melbourne during the 1940s and 1950s.

A jawbone from the extinct thylacine or Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) acquired by the Tiegs Zoology Museum in the early 1920s was rediscovered in a first-year Biology practical class at the University of Melbourne.

Early in semester I 2017, the first-year cohort of eleven Bachelor of Fine Art Animation students at the VCA explored the history of animation inventions, and more generally the role and impact of inventions and their inventors in shaping cultures, stories and artworks.

The school on the hill exhibition was launched on Thursday 26 October at the University of Melbourne's Creswick campus. This exhibition, drawn from the Creswick Campus Historical Collection, tells some of the story of the students and staff who have passed through the Victorian School of Forestry over its more than 100 years of providing forest education, and which is now part of the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences in the Faculty of Science.

The University of Melbourne's School of Chemistry Collection contains reels of two historical cinematic films. Ernst Hartung (Chair of the School of Chemistry 1928-1953) and Leonard Weickhardt (Chancellor of the University 1972-1978) made the film Colloids in the School of Chemistry in 1934.

The exhibition Romancing the skull at the Art Gallery of Ballarat opened to the public on 14 October 2017. Object loans from three of the University’s Cultural Collections (Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology, Rare Books and the Baillieu Library Print Collection) are key features of this edgy and multi-layered show.

Susannah Britt, a Masters of Art Curatorship student, has recently completed a project placement at University House. Her project brief was to curate a themed exhibition for the refurbished Main Dining Room using the University’s cultural collections as its focus.

We are pleased to announce that Clare Fuery-Jones, a third year Bachelor of Arts student majoring in Art History and Philosophy, was recently selected as the Melbourne recipient of the International Museums and Collections Award.

A new display of the permanent collection at the Grainger Museum showcases the design and construction of the physical Museum building and the creation of the exhibits and displays by Percy and Ella Grainger in the 1930s through to the 1950s.

Dr Kyla McFarlane, currently Acting Curatorial Manager, Australian Art at Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane will be joining the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne in late October 2017 as Curator Academic Programs (Research).

On Monday 31 July 2017 the newly refurbished Medical History Museum celebrated its 50th Anniversary with the launch of its latest exhibition, The Cancer Puzzle: Patterns, Paradoxes and Personalities.

In a new collaboration this semester, the Grainger Museum is partnering with a Master of Architecture design studio at the Melbourne School of Design, where students are staging a pop-up exhibition at the Grainger Museum, opening Monday 11 September 2017.

Susan Millard, Special Collections Librarian, recently recorded an Eavesdrop on an Expert podcast episode with Dr Andi Horvath from the University of Melbourne to discuss the contents of the new exhibition Art on the Page, which opened in the Noel Shaw Gallery on 1 August 2017.

The University of Melbourne Herbarium is celebrating the completion of a catalogue of the School of BioSciences Botanical Model Collection, thought to be the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

In the early 16th century Nuremberg-born artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) changed the landscape of his artistic practice – literally. Taking his cue from Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) and Piero della Francesca (1415–1492), Dürer began to introduce the ‘secret art of perspective’ into his works.

A recent research project carried out on a 19th century box of geological specimens by University of Birmingham student Katherine Reeve has revealed a fascinating and unexpected connection.

University of Melbourne students are invited to apply for the prestigious 2017 International Museums and Collections Award. The Award recipient will travel to the University of Birmingham in the UK and spend one month working alongside museum professionals on a variety of collection management projects.

At a ceremony at the State Library of Victoria on 28 July, it was announced that environmental historian Dr Luke Keogh has been awarded the commemorative Redmond Barry Fellowship for 2017. Dr Keogh's research project for the Fellowship is entitled Garden State: The Wardian case, Victoria and the global nursery trade.

Katherine Reeve, UK recipient of the 2017 International Museums and Collections Award, has recently commenced her month long placement with the museums and cultural collections of the University.

The Judgement of Paris (1510–1520) is an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi (c.1470–c.1534) after a drawing by Raphael (1483–1520). It elicited many keen glances and enthusiastic comments from audiences when it was brought out for both public programs and classes at the Baillieu Library recently.

In August, Trinity College and the University of Melbourne mark the first-year anniversary of The Professor Sir Joseph Burke Gallery in Trinity’s new Gateway building, situated on the University boundary with Tin Alley.

Dr Ursula Hoff bequeathed funds to the University of Melbourne to establish a Fellowship for the study and promotion of prints held in the print collections of the University of Melbourne and the National Gallery of Victoria.

University of Melbourne students are invited to apply for the prestigious 2017 International Museums and Collections (IMaC) Award. The Award recipient will travel to the University of Birmingham in the UK and spend one month working alongside museum professionals on a variety of collection management projects.

The Fellowship is a partnership of the John Truscott Design Foundation and the University of Melbourne Library. The Fellowship is awarded to a scholar or writer to prepare a manuscript biography of John Truscott (1936 – 1993), best known for his work in film and theatre design, as well as an artistic director. A major legacy of John Truscott is the interior of the Victorian Arts Centre, where much of his original work remains intact.

Once again the University of Melbourne will be providing a rich offering of displays, talks and events in celebration of Melbourne Rare Book Week, to be held 30 June to 9 July 2017.

Arts West will join a number of venues in the city and across the University campus for the Nite Art Festival to take place from 6:00pm to 10:00pm on 27 July 2017.

University of Melbourne students are invited to apply for the prestigious 2017 International Museums and Collections Award.

Once again the new displays in Arts West for Semester Two draw extensively on objects borrowed from the University’s museums and collections. Level one features an innovative display based on the important 19th century design sourcebook by Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament.

The papers of atmospheric physicist Dr Jean Laby (1915–2008) are now available for researchers to access at the University of Melbourne Archives.

Don’t miss the chance to view a massive 23kg medieval Bible, which will be on display in the Dulcie Hollyock Room, Baillieu Library, Friday 30 June to Sunday 9 July 2017.

The Lapworth Museum of Geology at the University of Birmingham has been shortlisted in the UK for the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2017, one of the most prestigious Museum sector awards in the UK. To help their nomination, the museum has sent a 3D printed replica of their Dudley Bug specimen (a 428 million year old iconic trilobite - from the Birmingham region) to friends on every continent. They are seeking messages of support from every continent along with an image of the Dudley Bug visiting museums and collections from around the world.

Over the last couple of months Kelly Russ, studying for her Master of Arts (Deakin University), has been exploring the photographs that make up the Property and Campus Services Photographic Collection.

The Grainger Museum is now accepting applications to its volunteer program. If you enjoy meeting new people, engaging with visitors, and sharing stories about museums, history, music and art, why not consider applying to be a volunteer?

Katherine Reeve, a Masters of Research (History of Art) student from the University of Birmingham has recently been selected as the UK recipient of the 2017 International Museums and Collections Award.

Over 58,000 cards from the Red Cross Missing, Wounded and Prisoner of War enquiry service from World War II are now available online. In 2014 Red Cross Australia donated their historical collection to the University of Melbourne Archives as a ‘Gift to the Nation’.

In 1914, when playwright Louis Esson exhorted his fellow playwrights to write 'authentic' Australian plays, he used the throwaway line 'something with a cow in it' to get his idea across.

Bachelor of Fine Arts Animation students channelled Percy Grainger's creative spirit in visits to the Grainger Museum for drawing exercises, led by lecturer Susan Stamp. Students in the Animation degree undertake research, idea development, screenwriting, storyboarding, character design and expression, utilising many different physical environments and practicing a variety of technical skills.

One of the more creative themes in the current exhibition in the Noel Shaw Gallery, Plotting the island: Dreams, discovery and disaster, relates to St Paul on Malta. When the exhibition was under development, curator Kerrianne Stone was keen to include objects which represented both the classical and biblical inspirations for the many voyages of exploration launched through the 15th to 18th centuries.

The Grainger Museum has begun a program to connect with, and support, post-graduate music composition at the University of Melbourne. From May the Museum is excited to welcome PhD student Alice Humphries as our new ‘Composer in Residence’.

Congratulations Vanessa O'Neill on being awarded the 2017 Joyce Thorpe Nicholson Fellowship.Title of work: The Greer Effect Proposed outcomes: A one-woman play written and performed by Vanessa O’Neill – based upon extensive research into both the Germaine Greer Collection and the Joyce Thorpe Nicholson Collection at the University of Melbourne.Brief summary: This piece will explore the effect of Germaine Greer’s work over the last five decades. It will seek to investigate Greer in her many and varied roles: as academic, performer, writer, journalist, lecturer, libertarian, comedian and provocateur.Project description: This project will draw upon the extensive archival materials contained within the Germaine Greer Collection, including letters, articles, lecture notes, interviews, diary entries, news clippings, video and audio footage, photos and ephemera. The work will celebrate the diversity and multi-faceted nature of Germaine Greer: fiercely intelligent, cheeky and playful, deliberately provocative, and consistently challenging taboos. The play will also make detailed use of the Joyce Thorpe Nicholson Collection. This collection has a range of Greer’s work, including a first edition copy of The Female Eunuch and a paperback edition that includes Nicholson’s own hand written comments and underlined sections. The impact of Greer’s work upon Joyce Nicholson is documented in a number of her own publications. Nicholson’s What Society Does to Girls (1975) begins with the chapter ‘Having My Eyes Opened’ which commences with the following text: “When I read The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer, I could not sleep for three nights. I felt she must have taken me for a case history, and so much that I had not been able to understand was suddenly made clear.” In Nicholson’s A Life of Books: The Story of D.W. Thorpe Pty Ltd (2000), in the chapter ‘Life gets even better’, she also writes about the effect that Greer’s work had upon her: “Suddenly I felt free. I could enjoy my new life without any more reservations...I am sure I looked the same, but I felt quite different and I liked the new me.” In this work, Nicholson recounts her experiences of meeting Greer in person: “In January there was a big party for the launch of The Female Eunuch, where I met Germaine Greer. I was to meet her on two later occasions and always found her a person of great humanity.” Nicholson’s writings offer important insights into the power of Greer’s works – in particular the impact that The Female Eunuch had upon women around the world when it was published. Joyce Nicholson’s work is crucial to this play, which will draw upon first hand accounts from women who have been deeply affected by Greer’s work. The Joyce Thorpe Nicholson Collection also offers the chance to examine Greer’s work in the context of other Australian feminist writers. Greer has frequently been derided and simplified within mainstream media. I want to explore Greer in all of her complexity – especially in relation to what she has provoked over the years in others. Greer was 30 when she commenced work on The Female Eunuch. (She is now 78). The book was immediately an international best seller and has never been out of print. At a time when the President of the United States publicly derides Hilary Clinton for being a ‘nasty woman’, and is caught boasting that he likes to grab a women ‘by the pussy’ (and still manages to be elected), it seems particularly timely re-visit Greer – one of the most notoriously ‘difficult’ and ‘nasty’ women on the planet. This play will seek to explore how society responds to women who boldly speak their truths, no matter how complex, difficult or unpopular. It will use Greer’s own words, as well as the responses and reverberations from a diverse range of women and men to her work (including those of Joyce Nicholson). In recognition of the fact that much of Greer’s academic work has involved teaching, writing and lecturing on Shakespeare, I plan to incorporate some of Shakespeare’s most notoriously ‘difficult’ female characters within this play. I will draw upon Greer’s lecture notes and writings on Shakespeare, to explore the echoes between Greer and these incredibly articulate and provocative female characters (including Kate, Rosalind, Beatrice, Queen Margaret and Cleopatra). My aim is to create a compelling, thought-provoking, complex and entertaining new piece of feminist theatre.The Joyce Thorpe Nicholson Fellowship is named in honour of Joyce Thorpe Nicholson. The fellowship shall be awarded to a scholar or writer to produce work that is based around the Joyce Thorpe Nicholson collection that incorporates her main areas of belief and work, particularly women’s issues and Australian publishing.

Harpist Hannah Lane has written a fascinating post for the Special Collections blog on a Rare Music Collection acquisition for 2017. This 18th-century harp method, Michel Corrette’s Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre à jouer de la harpe (1774), was thought to have been lost since scholars had been unable to locate any reference to a copy.

The Grainger Museum was recently successful in a highly competitive round for the 2017 University of Melbourne Engagement Grants. The successful application, entitled Music Making Memories, will fund a year-long project to promote well-being in people with dementia through encounters with material culture and music at the Grainger Museum, while facilitating professional practice and cross-disciplinary professional learning for postgraduate health and allied health students.

Even the most adventurous of travellers would struggle at dead reckoning Staten Landt, despite it being clearly marked on some maps, such as the Rare and Historical Maps Collection’s copy of Polus Antarctius (South Pole), one of the featured maps in the Noel Shaw Gallery's current exhibition Plotting the island: Dreams, discovery and disaster.

Fresh contributions to the understanding of objects in the Rare Books Collection are always welcome, especially ones which offer tantalizing new insights and interpretations.

The Grainger Museum has launched a new education page on its website. This new page provides examples and insights into the ways that the Museum engages with students.

Interested in the rare, the fabulous, the unique, the quirky? Need a scintillating conversation starter for the next event in your social calendar? Subscribe to the Special Collections blog and never miss out on the newest discoveries about objects from the Baillieu Library’s Special Collections and the Grainger Museum.

The Ian Potter Museum of Art is delighted to announce that Melissa Keys will be joining the Museum as Project Curator for the next two years.

A current project at the Ed Muirhead Physics Museum has Helen Merritt, a Masters in Cultural Materials Conservation student, completing a condition survey on the 4½“ Cooke Refractor Telescope. The telescope is installed in the observatory on top of the David Caro Building (in which the Ed Muirhead Physics Museum is located), and is used by undergraduate astronomy students to observe sunspot activity.

Aeon is the Reading Room’s new request management application that assists staff, researchers and collection managers track and respond to requests for access to material from Special Collections, the Grainger Museum and University of Melbourne Archives.

One of the thought-provoking themes included in the latest exhibition in the Baillieu Library’s Noel Shaw Gallery, Plotting the island: dreams, discovery and disaster, is the Dutch encounter with Australia in the 17th century. The Dutch are viewed as having added the coastline of Australia to the world’s map through their landings on the continent from 1606 until 1644 and their subsequent issuing of printed maps. For example, the world map reissued by Daniel Stopendael shows New Holland’s position on the globe, yet its outline is incomplete and inaccurate.

In 2008 the Baillieu Library was excited to purchase a rare original intact binding by the early Cambridge stationer Nicholas Spierinck, generously funded by the Ivy May Pendlebury Bequest. The beautifully tanned calfskin cover encases a 1512 Paris edition of the works of 3rd-century Christian theologian, Origen Adamantius. At the time of the book’s acquisition, it was (and remains) the only known example of a complete Spierinck binding held in an Australian institution, bearing his personal binder’s mark, and incorporating his signature decorative schema of wyverns, gryphons and acorns.

Arts West opened in July 2016 and is the new home for students undertaking the Bachelor of Arts. As well as providing 24 new teaching spaces, the building is equipped with display cases over 6 floors which exhibit objects from the University’s vast cultural collections. In preparation for first semester, a number of new displays have been installed and are open for viewing by University students, staff and the general public.

After 16 months of intensive cataloguing and processing, the Germaine Greer Archive at the University of Melbourne Archives will be open to researchers from 27 March 2017. Professor Germaine Greer will be at the University of Melbourne to help celebrate the opening of the archive at a special event to be held on International Women’s Day (8 March).

The VCA School of Film and Television Archive’s Digital Archive Project has received significance funding from The University of Melbourne’s latest round of Student Services Amenities Funding grants. The Digital Archive Project aims to organise, curate and showcase the many quality student films made at VCA over the years.

One hundred and fifty students from the summer intensive subject Astronomy in World History had the opportunity to see up close objects from the exhibition Plotting the island: dreams, discovery and disaster before it opened to the public on 23 February.

Next time you attend one of the talks or displays regularly hosted in the Dulcie Hollyock Room in the University of Melbourne’s Baillieu Library, you may be intrigued to muse upon an unexpected link to the world of romance.

Currently on show at the Grainger Museum is a copy of Paul Gauguin’s Nevermore painted by Jelka Delius (nee Rosen), the wife of composer Frederick Delius. This work attracted the curiosity of Nicholas Tammens, one of the Grainger Museum’s Client Services Officer, who recently posted his research into this work on the Special Collections blog.

Irene Finkelde, a Masters of Cultural Materials Conservation student at the University of Melbourne and 2016 recipient of the IMaC Award, recently commenced her month-long placement at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom in mid January.

After a comprehensive search, Dr Heather Gaunt has been appointed as Curator, Exhibitions and Collections at the Grainger Museum.

The Medical History Museum begins its 50th anniversary year with a complete refurbishment of the museum space and  the adjoining second floor study area of the Brownless Biomedical Library. This refurbishment will bring together the museum and study areas as a more unified and integrated space.

Examples from amongst the University’s 15,000 rare and historical maps have joined the Teaching with unique collections website.

In addition to his many achievements and contributions to medical science, Nobel Prize winner Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet immersed himself in the Australian bush as a keen hiker and beetle collector during his student days and beyond.

When Swedish doctor Tage Sjögren became the first person to cure a patient’s skin cancer using x-ray treatment in 1899, he lamented that there was no safe method to accurately measure radiation doses, having to rely instead on intuition and previous experience.

Rare Books, Baillieu Library is fortunate to have recently acquired a copy of the 1834–1835 published studies of the distinguished French naturalist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844). Titled Etudes progressives d’un naturaliste pendant les années 1834 et 1835, the volume includes two detailed papers on the platypus and echidna, and a skilfully rendered fold-out illustration of pair of wombats placed in a naturalistic setting.

Do you use the archives at the Grainger Museum for your research? A comprehensive project is underway to re-arrange and describe the archives to increase discoverability and usability.

A striking group of Early Bronze Age vessels from the University’s Middle Eastern Studies Collection, recovered by Professor Paul Lapp’s excavations at Bab edh-Dhra in the Dead Sea plain of southern Jordan, are among the cultural materials to be explored by a group of older visitors at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, in a research project entitled The Role of Cultural Institutions in Facilitating an Age-Integrated Society.

The Grainger Museum has launched a members program to provide supporters with a new way to get involved with the Museum. Join today to receive a number of benefits, including discounts in the Museum shop, dedicated members news and updates, and invitations to exclusive events. Your support will ensure the preservation of this fascinating collection, and provide you with unique opportunities to engage with this dynamic museum.

Ever wondered what you could do with Shakespeare’s second folio and a bamboo pipe? These and many more objects along with innovative learning ideas are presented on a new website: Teaching with unique collections.  Made possible with a Melbourne Engagement Grant, the website provides resources, an online showcase, and a virtual setting for teaching and learning in many disciplines.

To show both students of printmaking and financial studies the rich links between printing and economic history, the Baillieu Library Print Collection has acquired three engraved banknotes.

Corroboree, an ink drawing by the nineteenth century Indigenous artist Tommy McRae, has been transformed into a monumental work of public art on the north façade of the University’s new Arts West building. The inclusion of this work by McRae has inscribed a powerful and important Indigenous perspective on Australian history into the building’s skin.

The Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum recently re-opened its newly refurbished permanent exhibition space with a launch on Wednesday 26 October.

Dr Sharon Huebner and Dr Rod Buchanan, the 2015 Hugh Williamson Foundation Fellows at the University of Melbourne Archives, have both concluded their projects with presentations to full houses.

While piano (or pianola) rolls might seem the ultimate in technological obsolescence, the Rare Music Collection was delighted to accept a generous donation of 126 piano rolls (just part of a larger collection) last year.

Looking at a work of art on paper, it can be difficult to imagine the close relationship between a print, and metal craft. Yet printmaking owes much of its legacy to metal arts and this affiliation was more apparent in early western prints as many of the masters learned their art from the metal smiths, such as Albrecht Dürer who was the son of a goldsmith and was familiar with that art.