Friends of the Baillieu Library
2007 Programme of Events
Tuesday 27 March
5.30 for 6.00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
Annual General Meeting
Professor Warren Bebbington (Pro Vice-Chancellor, University Relations) - The University and its cultural policy.
Tuesday 17 April
5.30 for 6.00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
Botanical Riches: Stories of Botanical Exploration - Richard Aitken (Meigunyah Press)
Richard Aitken is a Melbourne-based architect, curator and historian. He has prepared conservation plans for many of Australia's most significant historic gardens, including the botanic gardens of Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of Garden History, journal of the British-based Garden History Society. His publications include The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens (2002), Gardenesque: A celebration of Australian gardening (2004) and Seeds of Change: An illustrated history of Adelaide Botanic Garden (2006).
Saturday 23 June
2.00 pm 120 Dawson St Brunswick
Visit to Melbourne University Archives
The University of Melbourne Archives collects, manages and provides access to the historical records of the University, Victorian business, trade unions and other labour organisations, community and cultural organisations, as well as the personal papers of many individuals prominent within them. Records date back to the first years of the colony of Victoria up until the present day and cover a very wide field of endeavour. The Archives were established in 1960 and to date hold some 15 kilometres of records.
Tuesday 24 July
5.30 for 6.00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
Voyages to the South Seas by Danielle Clode
Voyages to the South Seas recounts the epic journeys of French explorers to Australia and encompasses a remarkable period of French and Australian history—when Australia was France's Mars and marsupials were her aliens. Australia may have been colonised by England, but for many years, by sheer weight of specimens and scientific documentation, Australia's biodiversity belonged to France. Dr Danielle Clode is a science writer fascinated by scientific history. Her love of the Australian landscape and exploration was born from a childhood spent sailing along the east coast with her parents on a gaff-rigged yawl. Danielle researched Voyages to the South Seas while a Creative Fellow at the State Library of Victoria. She has previously been the Thomas Ramsay Science and Humanities Fellow at Museum Victoria and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford where she completed her DPhil in zoology.
Saturday 21 July
2.00 – 4.00 pm The Melbourne Athenaeum 188 Collins St. Melbourne
“A passion for books”
Interested in books, libraries and their histories? This afternoon event gives us the opportunity to visit one of Melbourne’s oldest libraries and also to hear a talk from one of our leading book dealers. The Melbourne Athenaeum was founded in 1839. Jill Bartholomeuz, the Athenaeum’s librarian. will talk about its fascinating history and its library. This will be followed by a talk from Kay Craddock on buying books: by auction, from a dealer & via the Internet. Kay runs one of Melbourne’s best known rare and antiquarian book shops and we will be able to visit this after her talk.
Tuesday 21 August
5.30 for 6.00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
Dr Qinghua Guo - Yingzao Fashi
A talk on a fascinating work, the Yingzao Fashi, a twelfth-century manual on Chinese architecture. The Friends provided the funds to purchase a facsimile of this important work. The Yingzao Fashi (State Building Standards) is the oldest extant Chinese technical manual on buildings. It was compiled by Li Jie, a Superintendent of State Buildings (later Director of Palace Building) in 1100 and published by the Song sovereign in 1103.
Tuesday 18 September
6.30 for 7.00 pm University House, University of Melbourne
Friends’ 2007 Annual Dinner
Guest speaker - Associate Professor Chris Mackie on the archaeology of Gallipoli.
Tuesday 30 October
5.30 for 6.00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
Life Class: The Education of a Biographer by Brenda Niall
One of Australia's foremost biographers, Brenda Niall is the author of Martin Boyd: A Life; Georgiana; The Boyds: A Family Biography and Judy Cassab: A Portrait. In Life Class: The Education of a Biographer she retraces her own footsteps to discuss the pleasures of biographical discovery and the pitfalls — technical, personal and moral — of entering other peoples' lives. Her journey takes her back to childhood in the prosperous Melbourne suburb of Kew, her convent education, her chequered university studies and her late-blossoming career at the newly-founded Monash University in the exuberant 1960s. Her biographical adventures include travels in England, Scotland, Italy, Austria and Hungary as well as scenes closer to home in Melbourne, the Mornington Peninsula, Sydney and the Shoalhaven region of NSW. Profound and intriguing questions are explored in this unusual and deeply personal account of a biographer's life.
Tuesday 27 November
5.30 for 6.00 pm Leigh Scott Room – Baillieu Library
Members' Night - The Friends 40 years On
Join us for a special celebration commemorating the Friends’ 40th Anniversary.