Common Ground – a global meet up celebrating The Commons on Flickr will be held at the State Library of Queensland. This event will also be hosted, around the globe, by other members of The Commons.

The event in Brisbane will consist of a large projection onto the screen in the State Library’s stunning Queensland Terrace using a slideshow of content from The Commons on Flickr participating institutions that is curated by its community of users – making the Flickr Commons go ‘live’ through a connected slideshow. This special event will include images from Picture Queensland – the State Library of Queensland’s image library.

Light refreshments will be served.

When 6pm, Fri 2 Oct
Where Queensland Terrace, level 2
RSVP to marketing@slq.qld.gov.au (acceptances only Thurs 1 Oct)

  Cherry Walker modelling swimsuits at Surfers Paradise, 1951.  Image No: 181603

  Asking for Gary Cooper’s autograph, November 1943.  Image No: 105715

  Crocodile bagged on the Herbert River. ca. 1930.  Image No: 6670-0001-0034

Share/Save

  Steve Irwin, 2009 Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame inductee

Eleven new digital stories are now online as part of the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame. These stories celebrate, record and retell the history of outstanding Queensland business leaders, leading businesses and their contribution to Queensland.

Terri Irwin talks about the life of her husband and his lasting legacy; Frank Burnett of Castlemaine Perkins tells the story about well-known character “Mr Fourex” and Sister Angela Mary, Queenslander of the Year in 1989, reflects on her time as Chief Executive of the Mater Hospitals. There are stories on many other businesses and business leaders, including QANTAS, Clem Jones, Don Argus, Bob Bryan, Burns Philp, Jim Kennedy, Joe Saragossi, John and Valmai Pidgeon.

View all the stories via Queensland Stories website

These stories are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommerical - No Derivative Works license.

These stories were created as part of a joint partnership between the State Library of Queensland, QUT’s Faculty of Business and the Queensland Library Foundation.

Share/Save

The dust cloud that swept across Brisbane yesterday made for some spectacular photographs. These shots were taken by the State Library’s photographer, Reina Irmer, at lunchtime yesterday, showing views of and from the State Library.

It is not the first time Queensland has been hit by dust storms though, as the following photographs testify.

  Dust storm approaching Boulia in Western Queensland, ca. 1926.  Image No: 164563

  Dust storm over Cloncurry, 1930.  Image No: 44719

  Dust storm between Bedourie and Boulia, Queensland, 1954.  Image No: lbp00242

Share/Save

In 2009 Australia Post launched a fantastic project called Letters of a Nation to mark its 200th anniversary. This  project aims to form an archive of some of the more interesting letters delivered by posties throughout this period. A book will be compiled later in the year.

Members of the public and major archives and libraries around the country have been asked to contribute their best letters for the project and these are available through a searchable online database:

https://200years.auspost.com.au/html/loan/archive/ 

 Dame Nellie Melba photographed outside the Gresham Hotel, Brisbane, ca. 1909. neg 36747

If you do a search on the database you will discover two letters contributed by the State Library of Queensland. One is written by a young Nellie Armstrong (Dame Nellie Melba) to her singing teacher, Signor Cecchi, in 1883:

https://200years.auspost.com.au/html/loan/archive/view_detail/1172

 Bert Hinkler alighting from his plane, 1928. neg 65644

The other is by Bert Hinkler in London to his parents in Bundaberg written in 1919 which details his plans to fly his ”Sopwith Dove” from England to Australia.

https://200years.auspost.com.au/html/loan/archive/view_detail/1177

Share/Save

The collection on display in the John Oxley reading room on level 4 is only a small percentage of our total collections.  The State Library building at South Bank has repositories containing around 24 km of shelving.  You can order items from this Closed Access collection, and view them in the reading rooms.  Orders can be placed through our OneSearch catalogue or ask our staff to help you find what you want.

        Views of the South Bank repository

From Monday to Friday, requests submitted before half past the hour are delivered on the next hour when the library is open.  Did you know that we keep your requests for you for 3 days?  This means you can plan your visit to the library, and order in advance.

Changes in delivery times on weekends

On weekends there will be fewer delivery times, starting from 3rd October.
The new delivery times:
11am (order by 10.30am)
12 noon (order by 11:30am)
2pm (order by 1:30pm)
3pm (order by 2:30pm)

To avoid having to wait for a delivery, simply order ahead!  Orders for the weekend can be placed as early as Thursday. This will ensure that the items you want are available for you over the weekend.

Share/Save

  Attendees from the John Oxley Library. From left Elisabeth Faaoso, Janette Whitehead, Dr Leanne Day, Dr Judith Mckay(JOL Fellow) and Dianne Byrne.

Following on from my colleague Leanne Day’s comments posted on the John Oxley Library Blog on 8 September I would like to offer some more observations about the wonderful two-day conference organised by the Professional Historian’s Association titled  Journeys through Queensland’s history: landscape, place and society held in Brisbane, on 3-4 September 2009.

It was difficult to choose a paper to highlight as all were pertinent to my role as a service provider engaged in helping clients access our John Oxley Library Queensland history resources. The conference was one of the best I have ever attended and I found the enthusiasm and knowledge of all the speakers to be exceptional with each providing a fascinating insight into Queensland’s history. I will restrict my comments to the paper presented by Dr Brian Sinclair:

Tracking heritage and guaging the significance: assessing heritage significance of the Etheridge Railway

Dr Sinclair spoke about the Etheridge Railway which was constructed from Almaden to Charleston (Forsayth) between 1907 and 1910 as a private railway. It was managed and later purchased by the Queensland Government. The line was constucted cheaply as a branch of the Chillagoe Railway to supply the Chillagoe Company’s underutilised smelters with copper ore.

Although the railway’s mining use was short lived its value to communities and pastoralists in the Etheridge district persuaded the government to maintain the line.

Today the Savannahlander, a tourist railmotor, is the only commercial traffic on the Etheridge Railway. It travels westwards from Cairns to Almaden before leaving the Chillagoe Railway and heading south on the Etheridge line.

In August 2008 Dr Brian Sinclair of the Cultural Heritage Branch of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) journeyed aboard the Savannahlander as part of the process of assessing the Etheridge Railway for inclusion in the Queensland Heritage Register.

  Derailed locomotive on the Chillagoe to Forsayth railway. Negative No: 31994

In the John Oxley Library we have a lot of materials documenting the history of railways in Queensland. From John Kerr’s classic text Triumph of the Narrow Gauge to a range of books, pamphlets, ephemera and photographs.

Dr Sinclair’s paper has furthered my knowledge in this area and I thank him and all the other presenters for their fabulous insights into aspects of Queensland’s unique history.

Janette Whitehead

Share/Save

John Oxley Library is searching for The Longreach Leader 1923 and 1924.

The State Library of Queensland is taking part in the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program which is being coordinated by the National Library of Australia.  As part of this program the Courier Mail 1846-1899 and 28 Aug 1933-30 Apr 1934 is now freely available online.  The Courier Mail will soon be online up to 1954.  The Queenslander newspaper (3 Feb 1866 to 22 Feb 1939) has also been digitised and will soon be available online.

Longreach Regional Council is working with State Library and National Library to commence the digitisation of The Longreach Leader newspaper.  The first step involves the microfilming of the first 10 years of this newspaper, but we are missing the years 1923 and 1924.

Can you help us to find issues of The Longreach Leader for the period 1923 and 1924?

If you can help us, please email us at heritage@slq.qld.gov.au or phone (07) 3840 7880.

Share/Save

The drowning of two sailors from a capsized boat competing in an ad hoc event on 11 November 1911 near the mouth of the Brisbane River initiated community action and a public meeting. The Sandgate Yacht Club was formed to formalise sailing on Bramble Bay. Sandgate Yacht Club, founded on the 14th February 1912 is the oldest established boating club in Sandgate and one of the oldest sailing clubs in Queensland. The club is located at Allpass Parade in Shorncliffe, on the northern banks of Cabbage Tree Creek. Regular races occur every second Sunday during the season and consist of Flying Fifteens and 505’s. Races are typically held out the front of Nudgee Beach, just to the south of the Cabbage Tree Creek entrance.

  Sailing day at Sandgate.  Image No: 54060

  Sandgate Sailing Club, 1922.  Image No: 99633

  Cabbage Tree Creek, Sandgate, ca. 1925.  Image No: 196385

Share/Save

The Professional Historians Association (Queensland) conference was held at the Marque Hotel in Brisbane on 3-4 September.  Several staff members from the John Oxley Library attended this event, which was held to mark the sesquicentenary of Queensland.

 Dr Leanne Day

Both days provided a wonderful forum for a range of papers on the history of Queensland.  Dr Leanne Day, from the John Oxley Library, presented an excellent paper on the Johnsonian Club, a gentlemen’s literary club founded in 1878 in colonial Brisbane.   The keynote address was given by the Queensland Governor, Ms Penelope Wensley, and was a highlight of the conference, discussing the importance of teaching Queensland  history in our schools and universities and preserving our heritage.

Other papers included A”fantastic adventure’: reading Christison of Lammermoor by Mark Cryle; Conspiracy of silence: the colouring of Australian history and the killing times on the nineteenth-century Queensland frontier by Timothy Bottoms; Rivers and resorts: how rivers and sheltered waters influenced the location of the Sunshine Coast’s resort towns by Peter Osborne; and Remembering the cane: conserving the sugar legacy of far north Queensland by Joanna Wills.

The conference was a huge success and clearly shows that interest and scholarship in Queensland history is booming.

Share/Save

Queensland Authors & Legal Deposit Librarian, Dr Leanne Day, will present a talk on the two Queensland novels: The Curse and Its Cure (1893) by Thomas Pennington Lucas, and Last Drinks (2000) by Andrew McGahan. Both novels were set in Brisbane during significant historical periods and both authors drew on contemporary events to shape their stories.

 The Curse and its cure

In his speech commemorating the 20^th anniversary of his corruption report, Tony Fitzgerald questioned whether anything has really changed. Leanne will stretch this question to examine not just the last 20 years, but the last century of Queensland’s history by comparing the authors’ perspectives and reactions to the events of their respective periods.

 Last drinks

The talks will be accompanied by a display of resources from the John Oxley Library’s collection, which will provide historical context to her talk.

When: Friday 11 September, 11.00am and repeated 2.00pm.

Where: Fox Family White Gloves Room, level 4, South Bank building

See the ‘Talks’  page on the State Library website for further information.

Share/Save