Australasian
Ephemera Collections – Part 2: Australia
Following on from my guest post in October on New Zealand ephemera collections, the second of this two-part post highlights some
of the ephemera collections held by Australian institutions. Like the New
Zealand post it is hoped additions will be made by way of comments.
For details on the various subject categories
collected, it is suggested interested readers consult each institution’s
on-line catalogue (subject search ‘ephemera’). A Directory of Australian Ephemera Collections was published by the
State Library of New South Wales in 1992. An Index, compiled by the State
Library of Victoria, was published the following year.
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| (C) Monash University: special collections |
The AIATSIS began collecting ephemera in the 1970s.
Starting out with a focus on print material, the collection has grown to
include non-paper items, such as badges, t-shirts, and tea towels. The largest
sequence in the collection is comprised of invitations to openings of
Indigenous art exhibitions from across Australia.
A PDF summary of the collection and index to the ephemera
categories is available (see link above).
The AWM finding aids page includes links to multiple guides
from aerial photographs and card, certificates and leaflets, to private records
and film and sound. Though many of the guides pertain to ephemeral material,
such as the Guide
to the Cigarette & Trade Card Collection, under the specifically named
‘Ephemera (includes cards, certificates, leaflets, postcards and souvenirs)’
heading are listed: British
Commonwealth Occupation Force Souvenirs Collection, Souvenirs 15, the Korean
Collection, the Vietnam
Collection, the Gulf War
Collection, the East Timor
Collection, the Iraq
2003 Collection, and the Afghanistan
Collection.
Monash University Library
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| (C) Monash University: special collections |
Monash University special collections have been
acquiring ephemera since the 1990s. Material in the collection dates from late
seventeenth-century English pamphlets and broadsides to current menus, games, souvenirs,
posters, flyers, cards, and junk mail. In 2011, the library hosted an
exhibition called Ephemera, with a catalogue
(PDF) and on-line
version providing an overview of its rich holdings.
The Monash collection featured on the John Johnson
Collection’s Ephemera Resources blog on 6
February 2012.
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| (C) Monash University: special collections |
Australia’s national library has been collecting
ephemera relevant to the nation since the 1960s. The Australian ephemera is
indexed and divided into seven themes by subject: Australian performing arts
programmes and ephemera (PROMPT), formed collections, general ephemera,
geography and travel, programmes and invitations, scrapbooks, and trade
catalogues. While the NLA collects widely, it aims to acquire as much Federal
election campaign material and material relating to national events as
possible. In 2007, the NLA received the oldest example of Australian printing –
the 1796 ‘Jane
Shore playbill’ – as a gift from the Canadian government.
The NLA maintains a General
Ephemera Collection Thesaurus (PDF). Readers might also be interested in
the Library’s database Trove, which
includes a number of ephemera related resources and collections listed among
its contents from across Australia, some of which, such as the Federation
Ephemera at the State Library of New South Wales project, are freely
available on-line.
Visitors can browse the
ephemera collection and read the Library’s ephemera
collection development policy. The Library’s ‘Behind the Scenes’ blog has
also recently added two posts on ‘canvassing election ephemera in the Pacific’
(Part
1 and Part
2).
Between the Mitchell and State Reference libraries,
the SLNSW holds a diverse collection of ephemera, which includes some of the
earliest examples in Australia. Among the individual pieces highlighted on the
Library’s website are: a 1612 Dutch translation of the de Quiros pamphlet,
which contains the earliest printed reference to the word ‘Australia’, a
broadside ca. 1789 describing a wild man or monstrous plant brought from Botany
Bay, a playbill dated 8 March 1800, propaganda leaflets dropped by a Turkish
aeroplane at Gallipoli during World War I, and an album of invitations, menus
and other ephemeral printing related to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth of
Australia in 1901.
Among the
subjects highlighted on-line are collections related to Qantas airline,
which includes material from the 1920s to the present day, and on horse
racing.
The John Oxley Library of the State Library of
Queensland notes calendars, elections, exhibitions and festivals, invitations,
menus, royalty and royal visits, sport, and trade programmes among the
categories of material which it collections. The strongest sequence in the
collection is the Library’s theatre programmes, which date from 1866 to the
present day.
The John Oxley Library blog uploaded two helpful posts (available
on the same page) describing its theatre ephemera and how to search the
ephemera collection in the Library catalogue.
Material in the State Library of South Australia’s
ephemera collection dates from 1836 onwards, and includes material similar in
nature to many other institutions, from badges and business cards, to greeting
cards and sheet music. The library, however, also holds a unique collection of
wine labels. Collected since 1972, there are approximately 10,000 labels in the
collection, reflecting the state’s connection to the Australian wine industry.
A description of the collection can be found on the ephemera guide page (see
link above), and two hundred and fifty labels have been digitised and are
available through the Library’s Wine Literature of the
World website.
Centred on ‘Victoria and Victorians’, but including
material from across the country as well, the State Library of Victoria holds
one of the largest ephemera collections in Australia. Material dates from the
1850s onwards. In addition to the types of ephemeral material held by other
institutions, the SLVA is busy building a collection of local zines to document
Melbourne’s thriving art and music scenes.
Three of the library’s major ephemera collections – advertising,
political
ephemera, and theatre
programmes – have individual descriptions. Some examples from the Library’s
ephemera collection have been digitised, such as the fan-shaped programme for
the play School for
Scandal (Melbourne, 1869) and the 1935 Myer
Mail Order Shoppers’ Guide for Autumn & Winter. There is also a
research guide to the Library’s Political
Ephemera Poster Collection. A number of the posters have also been
digitised and are available on-line.
The SLWA ephemera collection numbers over 100,000
items. The library maintains a
selection of highlights from its ephemera collection on topics such as ships
and shipwrecks in Western Australia, royal visits, firms and businesses, the
Festival of Perth, and a collection of tombstone inscriptions gathered from
Western Australian cemeteries. There is also a page dedicated to finding Indigenous ephemera.
University of Queensland
While I could not find a general summary of its ephemera
collection, the University of Queensland Fryer Library has highlighted some
aspects of the collection, such as political
ephemera and material marking Queensland
statehood, as part of its Treasure of the Month
on-line exhibition series.
New Zealand
Update: Auckland
City Library Ephemera Collection
Part of the Sir George Grey Special Collections, the
ACL Ephemera Collection includes material from the 1840s onwards divided into
three distinct collections: the Old Colonists’ Museum Collection (material on
Auckland’s colonial period given to the library when the OCM closed in the
1950s), the Freida Dickens Programme Collection (music, dance and theatre
programmes, 1911-1976), and the New Zealand Ephemera Collection, which is
divided into two sequences based on type and subject matter respectively
(material includes menus, tickets, advertising flyers, cards and calendars).
The library maintains a searchable ephemera
index database.
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Wishing everyone Happy Holidays and a
joyous New Year from the Antipodes!
[Guest post by Anthony Tedeschi, Rare Books Librarian,
Dunedin City Library]
