The Rare Books Library at the University of Sydney holds a copy of the 1891 NSW Royal Commission into Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality, a rare and valuable document which invites us to view life in 19th century Sydney through Chinese eyes.
The stated aim of the commission – as Shirley Fitzgerald explains – ‘was to establish the extent of bribery and extortion within the Chinese gambling community, and between gambling syndicates and the police.’ Ostensibly a tool of the state to enact surveillance on Chinese urban life at a time of heightened anti-Chinese xenophobia in the city.
Sophie invites us to read the Commission against the grain, excavating the Chinese lives evidenced in its pages. What can the Commission tell us about Sydney’s Chinese ghosts?
Speaker: Sophie Loy-Wilson is a lecturer in Australian history at the University of Sydney. She is the recipient of an ARC DECRA Grant for her project Chinese Business: social and economic survival in white Australia, 1870-1940.
We are celebrating International Day of People with Disability on Friday, 3rd December 2021!
International Day of People with Disability (IDPwD) is a United Nations observed day celebrated internationally. It is aimed at increasing public awareness, understanding and acceptance of people with disability. Access, inclusion and diversity are part of our core at the University of Sydney Library. We’re proud to offer staff and students from all backgrounds the opportunity to get involved and build a stronger understanding of the challenges faced when living with a disability.
To celebrate the achievements and legacies of people with a disability this year the Disability At Work Network and Diversity Inclusion team have collaborated with the Library to develop this Spotify playlist. Tune in and enjoy!
There are many other mediums and so much content online that captures what it means to live with a disability, and outlines things we can all do to improve accessibility in our communities.
Here are some ways you can get involved and learn more.
Celebrate with Music!
Musicians with disabilities
The Library project team have curated a list of musicians with disabilities (particularly artists who are also staff or students of the University of Sydney, past or present) as part the University’s Disability At Work Network’s (DAWN) of develop the Spotify Playlist.
From classical music to jazz and contemporary, the list is ever-growing!
How invisible is an invisible disability? Myths and misconceptions from a student perspective and available support.
In this panel discussion we hear about the lived experiences of an invisible disability from current students, and explore why invisible disabilities are often thought of as less legitimate disabilities.
On Canvas we have information and links to apps that may assist anyone who experiences difficulty with vision, hearing, reading, writing, physical dexterity, organisation and planning due to disability and temporary or situational impairments.
Ensuring Library spaces, services and resources are easy to access for all clients is our priority. On the Library website, our Clients with disability web page is a guide to the support we provide all clients to help access resources and services needed for research and study.
Current University of Sydney students and staff have access to the excellent streaming service Kanopy. We highly recommend the films listed below. To set up your Kanopy subscription use this link.
CODA
This critically acclaimed short film explores the challenges faced by a hearing person with deaf parents. Set in the world of competitive dance, it was produced in 2019 by the University of Southern California.
Celebrated by audiences at home and abroad, Indigenous artist Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was one of the most important and acclaimed voices to ever come out of Australia. Blind from birth, he found purpose and meaning through songs and music inspired by his community and country on Elcho Island in far North East Arnhem Land.
This film stars three pioneering young American adults with intellectual disabilities, challenges what it means to be intelligent, and points to a future in which people of all abilities can fully participate in higher education, meaningful employment and intimate relationships.
A decade after the award-winning film about autism, Normal People Scare Me, Taylor Cross follows up with this sequel documentary including interviews of former and new cast members and family about attitudes and first-person perspectives/experiences in autism today.
Revisit Episode #15 “Disability Inclusion”. PeerPod is our bi-monthly podcast about topics relating to student life. In this episode our Peer Learning Advisors speak with Jack and Max about Disability Support Services; what they can do to assist with invisible disabilities and the positive impacts reaching out can have on your studies.
Reading List
We’re showcasing just a selection of books from our collection for Disability Inclusivity Week. Enjoy!
Transition to Retirement: a guide to inclusive practice
The Transition to Retirement (TTR) program aims to help older people with long-term disability gradually build an active and socially inclusive retirement lifestyle through volunteering and participating in mainstream community groups. Members of these groups are trained to act as mentors and provide support.
The three-year TTR research project and subsequent years of TTR service delivery have shown that this approach is feasible and has enduring positive outcomes for people with disability, mentors and community groups.
Look me in the eye: my life with asperger’s tells of a child’s heartbreaking desperation to connect with others, and his struggle to pass as ‘normal’ – a struggle that would continue into adulthood. John Elder Robison’s memoir of growing up with Asperger’s syndrome (a form of high-functioning autism) at a time when the diagnosis didn’t even exist is both moving and blackly funny.
Along the way it also tells the story of two brothers born eight years apart yet devoted to each other: the author and his younger brother, who would grow up to become bestselling writer Augusten Burroughs and who has contributed a beautiful foreword to this book.
The one and only Sam a story explaining idioms for children with Asperger syndrome or other communication difficulties.
Aileen Stalker
This is the story of a boy who struggles to understand non-literal expressions. Throughout the story, Sam encounters a range of common idioms, each of which is accompanied by an illustration of its literal meaning and one depicting its actual meaning, helping children to explore what the idioms sound like and why they might mean what they do.
Marcelo Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, faces new challenges, including romance and injustice, when he goes to work for his father in the mailroom of a corporate law firm.
This new and innovative book aims to investigate adult dyslexics and their long-term relationships, along with their journey through parenthood. The book begins by investigating adult dyslexics and their childhoods, looking at their emotional and behavioural coping strategies. These adults, with others from a website for adult dyslexics, look at the impact childhood trauma has on dating, then on marriage/long-term partners.
A commissioned study interviewing long-term partners of dyslexics brings new perspective to understanding how dyslexia affects relationships and how they interact as parents.
Visions : the inspirational journeys of epilepsy advocates
by Linda Sudlesky
‘Visions’ contains the stories of 50 people who have answered the call to advocate on behalf of those with epilepsy. They are people with epilepsy, family members, or friends who have been motivated by their own, unique experiences to make a positive impact in the lives of people who have epilepsy.
This book empowers people affected by epilepsy and inspires continued advocacy for what has been a misunderstood and underfunded neurological disorder.
The Successful Dyslexic Identify the Keys to Unlock Your Potential
by Neil Alexander-Passe
This innovative book looks at the keys for success in dyslexic adults, comparing both those who are successful and less successful, enabling parents and teachers to use these keys to best support young dyslexics. These keys look at home life, school, career choices, working relationships, coping strategies, traits, unique selling points, and what is considered success for somebody with dyslexia.
The Paralympic Games Explained is the first complete introduction to the Paralympic phenomenon, exploring every key aspect and issue, from the history and development of the Paralympic movement to the economic and social impact of the contemporary Games. classification in disability sport.
This autobiography tells of the author’s life before and after the car accident that left him a paraplegic. Tells of the efforts he made to cope with his injuries, his triumph in co-captaining the Australian men’s wheelchair basketball team which won the gold medal at the Atlanta Paralympics, his determination to complete a Masters degree in physical education and his work helping other victims of spinal injury.
Locked In: The Will to Survive and the Resolve to Live
by Victoria Arlen
Paralympics champion and Dancing with the Stars contestant Victoria Arlen shares her courageous and miraculous story of recovery after falling into a mysterious vegetative state and how she broke free, overcoming the odds and never giving up hope, eventually living a full and inspiring life.
The Handbook of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
by Vassil Girginov
The Handbook of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is the definitive, officially-licensed account of the world’s greatest sporting mega-event. It tells the complete story of the 2012 Games from inception, through the successful bidding process and the planning and preparation phase, to delivery, aftermath and legacy.
Written by a world-class team of international Olympic experts, sports researchers and writers, the book offers comprehensive analysis of the full social, cultural, political, historical, economic and sporting context of the Games. From the political, commercial and structural complexities of organizing an event on such a scale, to the sporting action that holds the attention of the world for three thrilling weeks, this book illuminates every aspect of the 2012 Games, helping us to better understand the vital role that sport and culture have in contemporary global society.
After losing both his legs in an accident in Afghanistan, Special Forces soldier Damien Thomlinson was determined not only to survive, but to meet life head on.
This is an uplifting story of guts, drive and exceptional resilience. Damien has set himself extraordinary challenges including walking the demanding 96km Kokoda Track in honour of a fallen comrade and becoming the public face of the Commando Welfare Trust.
Damien is now an aspiring Paralympian, determined to represent Australia in snowboarding.
Under the medical gaze: facts and fictions of chronic pain
by Susan Greenhalgh
This compelling account of the author’s experience with a chronic pain disorder and subsequent interaction with the American health care system goes to the heart of the workings of power and culture in the biomedical domain. It is a medical whodunit full of mysterious misdiagnosis, subtle power plays, and shrewd detective work.
Setting a new standard for the practice of autoethnography, Susan Greenhalgh presents a case study of her intense encounter with an enthusiastic young specialist who, through creative interpretation of the diagnostic criteria for a newly emerging chronic disease, became convinced she had a painful, essentially untreatable, lifelong muscle condition called fibromyalgia. Greenhalgh traces the ruinous effects of this diagnosis on her inner world, bodily health, and overall well-being.
What is it like to live with depression? To feel you are in a black hole with no way to escape?
Christina Taylor presents an honest account of what it was like for her, keeping a smile on her face for the benefit of the outside world, as she battled daily with conflicting and abnormal emotions and behaviours. Finally, no longer able to keep up the facade, she attempted suicide.
Depression, once a taboo subject, is now a recognized and treatable mental illness.
Life After Darkness: A doctor’s journey through severe depression
by Cathy Wield
Life After Darkness is the remarkable and moving story of a doctor and mother of four who endured seven years of severe depression. Self-harm, attempted suicides and admissions to psychiatric units culminated in her resorting to brain surgery as a final attempt to escape her illness.
The story of Cathy Wield covers the horrors of time spent in archaic institutions and the loss of any hope, to a full recovery following surgery. Today she has returned to her career and rediscovered the joys of life and her family. This story is one of hope from an often hidden and stigmatized disease.
Sydney is once again celebrating Sydney Rare Book Week (25 to 29 October) with an exciting free online program this year. Every day at 4 pm, a panel will discuss the importance of books, memorabilia, historical records and collecting, followed by a Q&A session.
Bring your afternoon tea and join us!
You need to register separately for each event – registration details are provided for each session.
Wednesday 27 October: The Sydney Harbour Bridge: an Australian icon
Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of Australia’s cultural icons, recognised worldwide. But how much do you actually know about this famous bridge? Join us for this panel discussion with speakers from the University of Sydney, the Powerhouse Museum and Moore Theological College to delve into the bridge’s history: its design, planning and construction, the people involved, the political climate and societal impact. This one-hour online event will feature a panel discussion, followed by ample time for audience questions. Bring your afternoon tea and beverage of choice and join us to be informed and entertained.
Julie Sommerfeldt Manager, Rare Books and Special Collections, the University of Sydney Library
Panel speakers:
Dr Sophie Loy-Wilson Senior Lecturer in Australian History, University of Sydney.
Anni Turnbull Curator at MAAS and her expertise includes the social history of Sydney and NSW. This includes significant sites of Sydney, and in particular the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Anni aims to incorporate people’s stories in museum and library collections and make them accessible through oral and video histories, exhibitions, web stories and podcasts.
Erin Mollenhauer AALIA(CP) ASAAM Team Leader, Library & Archives at the Donald Robinson Library, Moore College, where she has worked since 2012. She is responsible for the rare book collection and the Samuel Marsden Archives, a collecting archive focusing on Anglicanism and evangelical Christianity. She holds a Master of Information Studies (Librarianship) from Charles Sturt University, and a Graduate Diploma of Archives and Records Management from Curtin University.
Dr Cameron Logan Urban and architectural historian and director of the postgraduate program in Heritage Conservation at the University of Sydney. He is currently working on a book on the adaptive reuse of buildings, and developing a project about architecture and the urban crowd. He is the author of Historic Capital: Preservation Race and Real Estate in Washington, DC (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), which was awarded the Society of Architectural Historian’s Antoinette Forrester Downing Book Award. He is co-editor of Fabrications: the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand.
All the Best to Anastasia for their entry into the International Visualise Your Thesis Competition Final!
Join us to celebrate Anastasia Suraev, the winner of the University of Sydney competition and our runner for the 2021 International Visualise Your Thesis Competition Final!
Anastasia’s From prohibition to prescription: Cannabinoids as novel sleep aids will now compete against 24 finalists from six countries and have the chance to win up to $5000!
Visualise Your Thesis is an international competition that challenges HDR students to present their projects in a 60-second, eye catching, audio-visual digital display. By creating a “visual elevator pitch”, participants describe their research to a non-specialist audience while developing crucial employability skills, such as effective communication and storytelling.
How we can support Anastasia – “Trending on VYT”
“Trending on VYT”, the Visualise Your Thesis Viewers’ choice competition, is back and will award the creator of the entry with the most views as recorded by figshare. Join us and support Anastasia’s From prohibition to prescription: Cannabinoids as novel sleep aids by sharing their entry as widely as possible from Monday, 4 October to Sunday, 10 October 2021. All the best Anastasia!
Join us as the University of Sydney Library celebrates Disability Inclusion Week, 20 – 24 September 2021!
The theme for 2021 is Invisible Disabilities. There are 4.4 million Australians who have a disability and 90% of them have an invisible disability.
Access, inclusion and diversity are part of our core at University of Sydney Library. We’re proud to offer staff and students from all backgrounds the opportunity to get involved and build a stronger understanding of the challenges faced when living with a disability.
Here are some ways you can get involved and learn more.
Events
How invisible is an invisible disability? Myths and misconceptions from a student perspective and available support.
Tuesday 21 September, 12.30-1.30pm
In this panel discussion we will hear about the lived experiences of an invisible disability from current students, explore why invisible disabilities are often thought of as less legitimate disabilities.
This year Disability Inclusion Week also coincides with International Week of Deaf People. Learn more about the Deaf community as the panel discusses their cultures and languages. You will hear people sharing their lived experience, alongside those researching and working closely with Deaf communities.
On Canvas we have information and links to apps that may assist anyone who experiences difficulty with vision, hearing, reading, writing, physical dexterity, organisation and planning due to disability and temporary or situational impairments.
Ensuring Library spaces, services and resources are easy to access for all clients is our priority. On the Library website, our Clients with disability web page is a guide to the support we provide all clients to help access resources and services needed for research and study.
Current University of Sydney students and staff have access to the excellent streaming service Kanopy. We highly recommend the films listed below. To set up your Kanopy subscription use this link.
CODA
This critically acclaimed short film explores the challenges faced by a hearing person with deaf parents. Set in the world of competitive dance, it was produced in 2019 by the University of Southern California.
Celebrated by audiences at home and abroad, Indigenous artist Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was one of the most important and acclaimed voices to ever come out of Australia. Blind from birth, he found purpose and meaning through songs and music inspired by his community and country on Elcho Island in far North East Arnhem Land.
This film stars three pioneering young American adults with intellectual disabilities, challenges what it means to be intelligent, and points to a future in which people of all abilities can fully participate in higher education, meaningful employment and intimate relationships.
A decade after the award-winning film about autism, Normal People Scare Me, Taylor Cross follows up with this sequel documentary including interviews of former and new cast members and family about attitudes and first-person perspectives/experiences in autism today.
Revisit Episode #15 “Disability Inclusion”. PeerPod is our bi-monthly podcast about topics relating to student life. In this episode our Peer Learning Advisors speak with Jack and Max about Disability Support Services; what they can do to assist with invisible disabilities and the positive impacts reaching out can have on your studies.
Reading List
We’re showcasing just a selection of books from our collection for Disability Inclusivity Week. Enjoy!
Transition to Retirement: a guide to inclusive practice
The Transition to Retirement (TTR) program aims to help older people with long-term disability gradually build an active and socially inclusive retirement lifestyle through volunteering and participating in mainstream community groups. Members of these groups are trained to act as mentors and provide support.
The three-year TTR research project and subsequent years of TTR service delivery have shown that this approach is feasible and has enduring positive outcomes for people with disability, mentors and community groups.
Look me in the eye: my life with asperger’s tells of a child’s heartbreaking desperation to connect with others, and his struggle to pass as ‘normal’ – a struggle that would continue into adulthood. John Elder Robison’s memoir of growing up with Asperger’s syndrome (a form of high-functioning autism) at a time when the diagnosis didn’t even exist is both moving and blackly funny.
Along the way it also tells the story of two brothers born eight years apart yet devoted to each other: the author and his younger brother, who would grow up to become bestselling writer Augusten Burroughs and who has contributed a beautiful foreword to this book.
The one and only Sam a story explaining idioms for children with Asperger syndrome or other communication difficulties.
Aileen Stalker
This is the story of a boy who struggles to understand non-literal expressions. Throughout the story, Sam encounters a range of common idioms, each of which is accompanied by an illustration of its literal meaning and one depicting its actual meaning, helping children to explore what the idioms sound like and why they might mean what they do.
Marcelo Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, faces new challenges, including romance and injustice, when he goes to work for his father in the mailroom of a corporate law firm.
This new and innovative book aims to investigate adult dyslexics and their long-term relationships, along with their journey through parenthood. The book begins by investigating adult dyslexics and their childhoods, looking at their emotional and behavioural coping strategies. These adults, with others from a website for adult dyslexics, look at the impact childhood trauma has on dating, then on marriage/long-term partners.
A commissioned study interviewing long-term partners of dyslexics brings new perspective to understanding how dyslexia affects relationships and how they interact as parents.
Visions : the inspirational journeys of epilepsy advocates
by Linda Sudlesky
‘Visions’ contains the stories of 50 people who have answered the call to advocate on behalf of those with epilepsy. They are people with epilepsy, family members, or friends who have been motivated by their own, unique experiences to make a positive impact in the lives of people who have epilepsy.
This book empowers people affected by epilepsy and inspires continued advocacy for what has been a misunderstood and underfunded neurological disorder.
The Successful Dyslexic Identify the Keys to Unlock Your Potential
by Neil Alexander-Passe
This innovative book looks at the keys for success in dyslexic adults, comparing both those who are successful and less successful, enabling parents and teachers to use these keys to best support young dyslexics. These keys look at home life, school, career choices, working relationships, coping strategies, traits, unique selling points, and what is considered success for somebody with dyslexia.
The Paralympic Games Explained is the first complete introduction to the Paralympic phenomenon, exploring every key aspect and issue, from the history and development of the Paralympic movement to the economic and social impact of the contemporary Games. classification in disability sport.
This autobiography tells of the author’s life before and after the car accident that left him a paraplegic. Tells of the efforts he made to cope with his injuries, his triumph in co-captaining the Australian men’s wheelchair basketball team which won the gold medal at the Atlanta Paralympics, his determination to complete a Masters degree in physical education and his work helping other victims of spinal injury.
Locked In: The Will to Survive and the Resolve to Live
by Victoria Arlen
Paralympics champion and Dancing with the Stars contestant Victoria Arlen shares her courageous and miraculous story of recovery after falling into a mysterious vegetative state and how she broke free, overcoming the odds and never giving up hope, eventually living a full and inspiring life.
The Handbook of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
by Vassil Girginov
The Handbook of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is the definitive, officially-licensed account of the world’s greatest sporting mega-event. It tells the complete story of the 2012 Games from inception, through the successful bidding process and the planning and preparation phase, to delivery, aftermath and legacy.
Written by a world-class team of international Olympic experts, sports researchers and writers, the book offers comprehensive analysis of the full social, cultural, political, historical, economic and sporting context of the Games. From the political, commercial and structural complexities of organizing an event on such a scale, to the sporting action that holds the attention of the world for three thrilling weeks, this book illuminates every aspect of the 2012 Games, helping us to better understand the vital role that sport and culture have in contemporary global society.
After losing both his legs in an accident in Afghanistan, Special Forces soldier Damien Thomlinson was determined not only to survive, but to meet life head on.
This is an uplifting story of guts, drive and exceptional resilience. Damien has set himself extraordinary challenges including walking the demanding 96km Kokoda Track in honour of a fallen comrade and becoming the public face of the Commando Welfare Trust.
Damien is now an aspiring Paralympian, determined to represent Australia in snowboarding.
Under the medical gaze: facts and fictions of chronic pain
by Susan Greenhalgh
This compelling account of the author’s experience with a chronic pain disorder and subsequent interaction with the American health care system goes to the heart of the workings of power and culture in the biomedical domain. It is a medical whodunit full of mysterious misdiagnosis, subtle power plays, and shrewd detective work.
Setting a new standard for the practice of autoethnography, Susan Greenhalgh presents a case study of her intense encounter with an enthusiastic young specialist who, through creative interpretation of the diagnostic criteria for a newly emerging chronic disease, became convinced she had a painful, essentially untreatable, lifelong muscle condition called fibromyalgia. Greenhalgh traces the ruinous effects of this diagnosis on her inner world, bodily health, and overall well-being.
What is it like to live with depression? To feel you are in a black hole with no way to escape?
Christina Taylor presents an honest account of what it was like for her, keeping a smile on her face for the benefit of the outside world, as she battled daily with conflicting and abnormal emotions and behaviours. Finally, no longer able to keep up the facade, she attempted suicide.
Depression, once a taboo subject, is now a recognized and treatable mental illness.
Life After Darkness: A doctor’s journey through severe depression
by Cathy Wield
Life After Darkness is the remarkable and moving story of a doctor and mother of four who endured seven years of severe depression. Self-harm, attempted suicides and admissions to psychiatric units culminated in her resorting to brain surgery as a final attempt to escape her illness.
The story of Cathy Wield covers the horrors of time spent in archaic institutions and the loss of any hope, to a full recovery following surgery. Today she has returned to her career and rediscovered the joys of life and her family. This story is one of hope from an often hidden and stigmatized disease.
Let’s be honest: this pandemic is the worst! Everyone is stuck at home and the already challenging task of meeting new friends at uni has been taken to a Final Boss level of difficulty!
We’ve been listening to you
We know you want to meet people, so the Library’s PLA team are starting a club and membership is FREE!
Usually, we’d bring the party to you in the Library with free Coffee & Croissants, but the pandemic has forced us to stay virtual! So instead we told the Library about our brilliant idea. The conversation went something like this:
PLA team: Hey Library, we really miss hanging out with students on campus
Library: Yeah, us too
PLA team: RIGHT!? Anyway, we wanna make a club for students to meet up on Zoom
Library: Cool, a Book Club sounds gre…
PLA team: NO! Not just a Book Club! A Pop Culture Club!
Library: …
PLA team: Let us explain…
What is the Pop Culture Club all about?
We’re talking movies, tv shows, books (NOT for your course), comics, manga, anime, podcasts, games, basically everything we’re doing to help pass the time in lockdown.
When are we meeting up?
On the third Tuesday of every month, in the afternoon when classes are pretty much done and you have nothing else to do, jump into a Zoom with the PLAs and other students from all over the University to talk about stuff that has nothing to do with class and everything to do with having fun.
There are also zoom backgrounds to download from the registration page!
See you in the Club!
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that this website may contain images, voices and names of people who have died.
The University of Sydney Library acknowledges that its facilities sit on the ancestral lands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who have for thousands of generations exchanged knowledge for the benefit of all. Learn more
