On an auspicious date - Friday 13 November - State Library hosted a forum called “Growing the knowledge: ideas for increasing access to your collections”. Participants from local public libraries and other cultural institutions attended presentations by John Oxley Library staff members Kate McDonald and Gavin Bannerman.

Kate talked about using Web 2.0 technology to enhance access to collections, using the examples of State Library’s contribution to Flickr Commons, our ventures into Twitter and this very blog.

Gavin’s presentation delved into the world of Copyright and how workers in the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) sector can make it work for them. The talk spotlighted three particular tools available in this industry: Creative Commons, an orphan work strategy and Section 200AB of the Copyright Act.

One particularly fantastic resource for GLAM workers is a free online publication by the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee and the Australian Digital Alliance. This handbook on dealing with Section 200AB and flexible dealing is an excellent resource with reference to very common, often quite sticky, Copyright scenarios.

Kate McDonald showing the group State Library’s images on Flickr Commons

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On Saturday the 6th July 1912, Brisbane had its first aeroplane flight. The pilot was Mr A. B. (Wizard) Stone the American daredevil who was barnstorming around Australia. According to the report in the Brisbane Courier on July 8 of that year, the event was one “of scientific and historic interest, a chapter in Queensland’s share of the romance of the conquest of the air”. To witness this historic event 8,000 spectators gathered at the main oval at the Brisbane Exhibition grounds.

Image number 65111

Visitors could pay an extra shilling to inspect the Metz Bleriot monoplane, a structure 28 feet from wingtip to wingtip and a length of 25 feet. It had a 50 h.p engine, 7 cylinders and its propellers were said to reach up to a speed of 1200 revs per minute. The plane weighed 156 pounds on the ground. Up in the air, with the passenger and fuel the aircraft reached a weight of up to 9cwt.

Crash of the bleriot. Image number 60453

Lady MacGregor, the Governor’s wife, and lieutenant Governor Sir Arthur Morgan were two of the eminent citizens there to witness the first flight. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, with clear skies and a light breeze the bird-like machine was guided out of the tent on the oval. After warming up, the monoplane was sent soaring 200 ft into the air. Stone flew the plane 3 times around the exhibition grounds amid great cheers from the crowd, and with each turn increasing altitude until he reached 400 feet.

After successfully flying for ten minutes he began his landing in a very steep decent with alarming consequences. The machine hit the ground sharply and one of the four wheels fell off and in a flash the monoplane did a somersault and crashed into the ground, smashing in half.

To the amazement of the crowd, the pilot made a miraculous exit from the wreckage and except for a few cuts and bruises was uninjured. Stone declared the oval unsuitable for flying being “practically a well from which it was difficult to rise and into which it was still more hazardous to descend”. The crowd surged onto the oval to view the pilot and his broken plane.

Stone was daring and adventurous and lucky to survive some of his many flying “mishaps”. Despite this, the “Wizard” was well respected and admired by many including Bert Hinkler whom he met at a travelling show in Bundaberg in 1912. Hinkler became his apprentice and mechanic and whilst with Stone, grasped every available minute to study the principles of flight and technical information he would later put into practice.

To find information on the history of flight, search our collection using the terms aviation, aviators, aeronautics, air pilots and flight.

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John Oxley Library staff member Dianne Byrne visited Pialba last Saturday to meet a very special donor. He is Mr John Bingham 95, author and artist who for many years has been a popular resident of the Fraser Coast.

“Jack” Bingham served with the RAAF during World War Two and was captured by the Japanese in Batavia (Dutch East Indies). He was imprisoned in Changi and sent to work on the Burma Railway. The story of his time as a POW and his courageous escape is recounted in his book My Life (2008).

Now in retirement after a long career as an engineer John Bingham devotes his time to producing vivid and expressive landscape paintings. Two of these have been generously donated to the John Oxley Library by their creator and the Library is honoured to accept them. They are full of the great charm, good spirits and love of life of the extraordinary man who made them.

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In the midst of the John Oxley Library’s White Gloves Tour to Longreach last weekend a special detour was made to Barcaldine to coincide with Sunday’s Community Cabinet meeting. 

A feature item of this year’s White Gloves Tours has been the Manifesto of the Labour Party to the People of Queensland, 1892. Recently added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register the Manifesto is a very special document, particularly in relation to the central west where the modern day Australian Labor Party had its origins.

On Sunday evening the Manifesto was displayed under the Tree of Knowledge monument and generated a great deal of interest from those who had gathered for the open air BBQ dinner with Premier Anna Bligh and members of her cabinet.

Folklore has it that the Manifesto was read publicly under the Tree of Knowledge in Barcaldine some time after the shearers’ strike of 1891.

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On Saturday 31 October the John Oxley Library White Gloves Tour continued to Longreach. As the sun went down on a beautiful outback afternoon the Oxley’s treasures were displayed in the charming interior of the Stockman’s Hall of Fame, R.M. Williams Cottage. Adjacent to the cottage 150 locals were gathered for the latest At Our Table banquet held in the Cattlemen’s Bar and Grill.

On the following Monday afternoon locals made their way to the Longreach Library where they donned the white gloves and examined the John Oxley Library materials on display. These included a range of items relating to the central west including fascinating letters from Aramac Station written in 1889, a scrapbook kept by John Howe, son of the famous shearer Jackie Howe, the first QANTAS Log Book from 1921, and Queensland’s earliest known handwritten journal of recipes and remedies from 1866.

Thanks to Carmen from the Longreach Library and the hospitality and interest shown by the people of Longreach. Thankyou also to those who shared their stories and donated materials to the John Oxley Library collection during this fantastic White Gloves Tour to the Central West.

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Did you know that the site of Brisbane’s proposed new Supreme and District Court complex was the location of our city’s first water supply?  The site, bounded by George, Roma and Turbot streets, was the location of the Roma Street Reservoir which was constructed by convicts in 1838 to create a water source for the new colony.  Convicts, under the direction of Captain Logan, built an earth dam across the creek between Roma and Little Roma Streets.  A pipline made of hollow hardwood logs carried the water down the hill to the soldiers’ barracks near Queen and George Streets, and from there to the commandant’s house in Queens Gardens.  The engravings below from 1865 show the reservoir in the bottom image in the right foreground.

  View of Brisbane, 1865.  Image No: 19422

In 1842 Brisbane was opened to free settlement and as the population grew added pressure was put on the reservoir.  Many complaints about the putrid quality of the water appeared in the pages of the Moreton Bay Courier including the following:

“We need only point to the neglected condition of the public reservoir at North Brisbane, upon which that section of the town is chiefly dependant for its supply, to prove the utter indifference hitherto displayed in this respect.  Constructed for the purpose of collecting and preserving the waters that drain from the hills in the vicinity; reserved from sale as a public property for the purpose, the reservoir is still abondoned to the destructive ravages of wanton neglect.  Its embankments are gradually being washed away, and the water that should be saved for a time of need is allowed to drain off whithersoever chance may guide it.  The basin is open alike to the uses of herds of cattle, of stray pigs, dogs and horses.”  (Moreton Bay Courier, 23/3/1850, p.2)

“Sir - I must crave space in the columns of your journal to draw the attention of the authorities concerned to the present state of the Reservoir, and quality of the water we are compelled to drink.  It does not need any scientific knowledge to see at once the impurity of the water - full of animal and vegetable life, and thickened by the visits of cattle, horses, ducks, &c., stirring up the mud and giving it a body.”  (Moreton Bay Courier, 24/10/1857, p.2)

The Roma Street Reservoir remained the main source of water until 1866 when thankfully the Enoggera Reservoir was constructed.

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