Category: Library talk

Be our guest on PeerPod!

Posted on by Library Communications
PeerPod imagery of recording studio

About two years ago, the Library’s Peer Learning Advisor (PLA) team were looking for a new way to reach out to students and help enhance their student life. As current postgraduate students, they felt they had a wealth of knowledge and experience to share, which could be a useful guide for all students looking to understand and make the most of university life.

Their answer: PeerPod – a bi-monthly podcast series in which the PLAs discuss topics and issues related to student life and share their own stories, experiences and advice.

Since its creation, PeerPod has covered all kinds of subjects, from how to start semester and make new friends, to bouncing back after failing an exam. We’ve heard stories from PLAs and advice from experts, but this year we’d like to add something more. We want students of all levels to join us in the recording studio and share their voices, opinions and experiences!

Do you have a unique insight into student life? Some handy advice that you want to share? Maybe a suggestion for a topic you’d like us to cover?

Email us at peerpod.pla@sydney.edu.au and let us know what topic you’d like to talk about as a guest speaker, and why!

Check out PeerPod on our website or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Find out more about the Peer Learning Advisor team and how we can support you.

Celebrating LGBT History Month with Peter de Waal AM

Posted on by Library Communications


In celebration of LGBT History Month, the University of Sydney Library and the Pride Network are proud to be co-hosting a presentation by a trailblazing activist of the Sydney LGBTQIA+ community, Peter de Waal AM.

The presentation will be held online, via Zoom, on Thursday 29 October from 2 to 3pm.


Register for the talk here.

Peter de Waal (left) with his partner
Peter Bonsall-Boone

Peter will speak about what it was like being a homosexual couple in the 1960s and 1970s and the challenge of being ‘out’ in that era. After sharing this personal story, Peter will participate in a 30-minute Q and A session about his work as an activist.

Don’t miss this opportunity to meet a true pioneer of LGBTQIA+ rights as we commemorate the fighting spirit of all those, like Peter, who worked tirelessly to improve the lives of so many.

About the speaker

Peter de Waal AM is a long-term LGBTQIA+ rights activist and author. Among his many achievements, he was a foundation member of CAMP Inc (Campaign Against Moral Persecution) in 1970, the first national homosexual rights organisation in Australia and publisher of the monthly magazine CAMP INK, from 1970 to 1977.

Peter was involved in the first homosexual rights demonstration in Sydney in 1971 in support of law reform. In 1972, he appeared on the ABC program Chequerboard, together with his partner Peter Bonsall-Boone. In 1973, they established the first Australian volunteer homosexual telephone help line, Phone-A-Friend, now called Twenty10 – Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service.

A few years later, Peter’s initiation of the first-ever Tribunal on Homosexuals and Discrimination resulted in the NSW State Government developing anti-discrimination legislation. Peter became a member of the Sydney-based Gay Task Force in the late 1970s, and participated in the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 1978.

During the 1980s, Peter was a health promotion coordinator at the Bankstown Community Health Centre, and a volunteer immigration advisor with the NSW Gay and Lesbian Immigration Task Force from 1989 to 1998.


Peerpod!

Posted on by Library Communications

‘Peerpod’ is your go-to podcast for all the insider knowledge on how to navigate uni life.

Hosted by our very own Peer Learning Advisors, the podcast is all about increasing a deeper sense of connectivity and belonging at Uni via a bi-monthly topical podcast.

We’ll be sharing stories, providing advice, and answering all the questions you have about Uni.

Listen to the podcast today!

The Peer Learning Advisors aka PLAs are all experienced students with their fingers on the pulse of student needs in real time and are best places to represent, speak to and share space with the student body. They have been trained in being a point of referral to students, offering tips on everything from where to find the best coffee on campus, to overcoming feeling isolated to using tech to support student initiatives and goals. 

Drop in for a chat with our PLAs at ThinkSpace, Bosch Commons, the Quarter, Dentistry Library, or Camden Commons.

Sydney Rare Book Week: Free events this October!

Posted on by Library Communications

The Library is excited to announce that this October, together with the State Library of NSW, we will be hosting the inaugural Sydney Rare Book Week: A week-long program of free talks and events to celebrate the importance of everything books: literature, publishing, book production, collecting & more.

Sydney Rare Book Week will be held at venues across Sydney from Sunday, 27 October to Saturday, 2 November 2019. There is something for everyone – talks and lectures, walking tours, exhibitions, hands on workshops, and behind the scenes visits.  The free events held here at the University of Sydney include:

Introduction to hand printing on the Albion Press Workshops

Have you ever used a letterpress? This workshop is an introduction to hand-printing using the University of Sydney Library’s Piscator Press. The course includes an overview of the history of letterpress printing, showing examples from our Rare Books & Special Collections.  Register for your opportunity to try the Piscator Press yourself & create your own print to take home.

Evening lecture: Giorgione in Sydney

Rare Books & Special Collections at the University of Sydney Library holds a first edition copy of Dante’s Divine comedy printed in Venice in 1497. In 2017 a chance discovery by a Librarian of an inscription and sketch in the back of this book has revealed the inscription to be a notice of the death of the elusive Venetian Renaissance artist, Giorgione, and the sketch, of the Madonna and Child, has since been attributed to him. 

Join Jaynie Anderson, Professor Emeritus in Art History at the University of Melbourne, and international expert on Giorgione discussing this remarkable find and its implications for rewriting Venetian art history.

Thursday 31 October 2019, 6:00pm – 7:00pm

Places are limited, please register your attendance online.

Sydney Rare Book Fair

Sydney Rare Book Week will conclude with the Sydney Rare Book Fair at MacLaurin Hall on Friday 1st November 1pm to 7pm & Saturday 2nd November 10am to 4pm.

Hosted by the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB), Australian and international booksellers will display a broad, diverse and interesting selection of books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera, including early printed books, historical accounts of travel, prints, literature, art, militaria, and children’s books.

Whether you already have your own personal library and wish to add to it or would like to know more about book collecting, this is your opportunity to explore the world of rare and antiquarian books with experts in the field.

For the full program of events, and to register your attendance, visit the State Library of NSW Website

#SydneyRareBookWeek

2019 Printer in Residence Program: Barbara Campbell

Posted on by Library Communications

The University of Sydney Library is delighted to welcome Barbara Campbell as the 2019 Printer in Residence!

Image: ‘Well there you are’ by Barbara Campbell, 2015

With an extensive creative practice spanning printmaking, performance, bookmaking and concept-driven enquiry, Barbara Campbell will take up residency in the Piscator Press workshop during Semester 2.

Her project ‘A Bird is in the Library’ brings together her passion for print techniques, haiku, libraries, and birds. It anticipates engagement with library users in an imaginative journey via letterpress and the architecture of the library and its systems.

Barbara will also hold two interactive open studios and a book launch exhibition at the end of the residency, see details below.

Image: Wendy Murray during the 2018 Printer in Residence by Sarah Lorien

Read more about the residency program on the Library website or you can follow the Library on social media: Facebook, Instagram or Twitter for updates. 

You can also see Barbara’s work online on her Instagram account.

Open Studios

Drop in at our Open Studio sessions to see Barbara Barbara at work and the Piscator Press in action. 

Dates: 

Between 2-4pm Wednesday 11th September, please register here

Between 2-4pm Wednesday 25th September, please register here

Book Exhibition Launch

Please join us the launch of Barbara’s book and to hear the artist speak about the residency, using the Piscator Press and all things letterpress!

Date: Thursday 17th October
Time: 6-8pm
Location: Press room and foyer area, Level 1, Fisher Library.

Please register here

Free Lunchtime Talk on Late Medieval Spanish Manuscripts

Posted on by Library Communications

Join us for an upcoming lunchtime talk by Dr David Andrés Fernández: Sacred space, music and liturgy in Late Medieval Spanish Manuscripts.

fol. 19 verso from Add.Ms. 420. “Poissy Processional.” 10 Mar. 1501: n. pag. Print. (One of the books discussed in the talk: a written and illuminated book of plainchant music that contains the liturgical processions used by nuns at the Dominican convent of Saint-Louis de Poissy at the beginning of the sixteenth century, between 1500 and 1510.)

Dr David Andrés Fernández is a visiting scholar from Complutense University of Madrid, Musicology and he will be discussing his latest research findings concerning some of the liturgical manuscripts recently purchased by Rare Books and Special Collections.

These manuscripts include books for both Cathedral and Monastic use, dating back to the thirteenth century. Many of the books focus on the period from Christmas to Epiphany.

Although provenance for a number of these manuscripts cannot yet be established with any certainty, repertorial and decorative evidence in some of the books points to links with the liturgical agenda of Salamanca Cathedral. Two monastic antiphonals and one gradual are identified with religious communities (Servites, Jeronymites, Augustinians) and one of these appears to have been associated with a particular house of nuns (Our Lady of the Snows).

When
Tuesday 20th August, 1pm – 2pm

Where
Fisher Library
Seminar Room, Level 2

RSVP
Numbers are limited so please register here.