2023 Printer in Residence

Image: 2023 Printer in Residence Mickie Quick. Photography by Ellie Stephenson

The Library is very excited to announce Mickie Quick as our 2023 Printer in Residence.

Kicking off at the start of Semester 2, Mickie’s residency will see him examine the history of progressive political text and images on campus by delving into the rich archives of Honi Soit, to create a series of prints that reflect and build on the history of activism on campus.

As joint Publications Manager at the SRC, Mickie will also work with the current editorial team to publish his work in Honi Soit during Semester 2. One more reason to get your weekly copy!

Mickie’s creative practice varies according to medium, from graphic poster design to ‘culture jamming’ billboard interventions, however, the common thread, “is the power of words and images in context to examine political realities”.

“I am very excited to be working with an historic print methodology on campus — letterpress printing with the Albion — and using it to create new prints that will come from a process of looking deeply into another longstanding print tradition at USyd — the publication of Honi Soit, and its role in political activism on campus,” said Mickie.

Liz Litting from the University Library says Mickie’s application was the unanimous choice among the selection committee.

“As well as holding physical and digital archives of Honi Soit, Fisher Library has historically been a meeting place for activism on campus. And Mickie’s relationship with today’s Honi provides probably the most direct form of student engagement we’ve had with the Printer in Residence program to date. Having all those things come together made the concept a natural fit, and we’re excited to see where Mickie takes it.”

Mickie will start his eight-week residency using the Piscator Press at the start of Semester 2. If you’d like to see him at work on the Albion letterpress, you can swing by the workshop on Level 1 of Fisher Library or keep an eye out for one of his Open Studio sessions (dates to be advertised).

About the Printer in Residence Program

Fisher Library is the home to a printing workshop housing an Albion letterpress printer, purchased by the library in the early 1960s, and affectionately known as the Piscator Press.

The Printer in Residence program was introduced in 2018 with the goal of increasing awareness of the Piscator Press and to encourage an ongoing enthusiasm for letterpress and book arts within the University. We aim to foster a creative dialogue between print and digital processes, while encouraging experimentation and engagement with the Library community.

We thank the Friends of the Library, Art Scene, and the Penrith Museum of Printing for their continued support of the Printer in Residence program.

The printing workshop is located on Level 1 of Fisher Library on the Camperdown Campus, and we welcome enquiries from anyone interested in using the space outside of the residency.

Lesbian Visibility Day, 26 April 2023

Lesbian Visibility Day is a day to recognise and celebrate the contributions of lesbian women around the world. The day was created in 2008 to raise awareness of the issues faced by lesbians, and to encourage them to live authentically.

To celebrate Lesbian Visibility Day 2023, the Library’s LGBTQIA+ Ally group has compiled a reading list of items within the collection that highlight and celebrate lesbian stories and experiences from around the world.

(Image: Honi Soit, 1977, vol. 50 issue 25)


In the Dream House

Author: C.M Machado

In this genre-bending memoir, author Carmen Maria Machado explores her experience of abuse in a same-sex relationship, drawing on a series of narrative tropes from horror, fantasy, erotica, literary theory, and beyond. She tackles an extremely challenging topic with nuance, wit, vulnerability, and imagination, leaving the reader as haunted as the eponymous “dream house”.

Discover this item via our catalogue


The Argonauts

Author: M.Nelson

“The Argonauts” is many things – a series of theoretical essays, a queer and feminist manifesto, and, perhaps most importantly, a love story. Maggie Nelson details her romance with gender-fluid partner Harry Dodge and their journey into pregnancy and child-rearing with an irrepressible tenderness and joy. This book is a celebration of queer families, of small joys, of caretaking, of lovemaking, and of radical individual freedom.

Discover this item via our catalogue


The Amazons: Lives and legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World

Author: A. Mayor

History has, indeed, been male-washed, but this is a refreshingly feminist read of the archaeological and historical record. And as an added bonus, the purported lesbianism of the Amazons is addressed – particularly as a disruptive symbol in direct opposition to ideals of Athenian masculinity.

Discover this item via our catalogue


After Sappho

Author: S.W Schwartz

Told in a series of cascading vignettes, featuring a multitude of voices, After Sappho is Selby Wynn Schwartz’s joyous reimagining of the lives of a brilliant group of feminists, sapphists, artists and writers in the late 19th and early 20th century as they battle for control over their lives; for liberation and for justice.

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Boulder

Author: E. Baltasar

The grim and lovely follow-up to Eva Baltasar’s acclaimed Permafrost explores the darker sides of love and motherhood for two women determined to live as they like.

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Mouths of Rain: An anthology of black lesbian thought.

Author: B. Jones

A ground-breaking collection tracing the history of intellectual thought by Black Lesbian writers, in the tradition of The New Press’s perennial seller “Words of Fire”. African American lesbian writers and theorists have made extraordinary contributions to feminist theory, activism, and writing. Mouths of Rain, the companion anthology to Beverly Guy-Sheftall’s classic “Words of Fire”, traces the long history of intellectual thought produced by Black Lesbian writers, spanning the nineteenth century through the twenty-first century.

Discover this item via our catalogue


The last night at the Telegraph Club

Author: M. Lo

Winner of numerous awards, this beloved poignant lesbian novel is set in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1954, during the Red Scare, when openly exploring queerness isn’t an option.

Protagonist Lily secretly gathers photos of women with masculine qualities, is drawn toward ‘unfeminine; clothing and interests, and slowly recognises her lesbianism with her budding connection to Kathleen Miller, a white classmate.

Discover this item via our catalogue


The big lie

Author: J. Mayhew

In an alternate-world modern England under Nazi rule, sheltered teen Jessika Keller questions what it means to be good when she develops an attraction for her best friend, Clementine, an outspoken, radical girl who has drawn the attention of the Nazi regime.

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Lesbian art: an encounter with power

Author: E. Ashburn

This benchmark publication documents the diversity and vitality of lesbian talent in Australia. A hitherto marginalised group, lesbian artists are now being incorporated into mainstream culture and this book provides a timely introduction to the issues explored by these artists, which include sexuality, mythology and religion, mass media and technology.

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Immortal invisible: Lesbians and the moving image

Author: T. Wilton

The first book that bought together “leading film-makers, academics and activists to discuss films by, for and about lesbians and queer women” It was written in the mid-nineties, so shows its age, and was written in peak Kill your Gays/No Happy Endings for Lesbians era, as well as being of the time where you took subtext and ran with it.

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Oranges are not the only fruit

Author: J. Winterson

This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by working-class evangelists in the North of England to be one of God’s elect. Passionate, headstrong and shielded by her mother’s grand disapproval of a sinful world, she seems destined for life as a missionary. And then she meets Melanie. At sixteen, Jeanette faces a world of uncertainty as she breaks from the church and her community for the young woman she loves. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a warm, witty and daring novel that gives voice to irrepressible desire.

Discover this item via our catalogue


International Transgender Day of Visibility, 31 March 2023

On 31 March 2023, we celebrate with gender-diverse people across Australia by sharing stories, starting conversations, and showing support.

Transgender Day of Visibility is an annual event that is marked all around Australia and the world. It is a celebration of trans pride and diverse identity. The day is about raising awareness and the visibility of the trans community, and recognising the achievements and lived experiences of trans and gender diverse people. This visibility is important because many gender diverse people experience isolation through lack of representation and role models.

Here are some awesome resources that are helpful for becoming an informed ally:

To celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility 2023, the Library has compiled a reading list of items within the collection that highlight the stories and experiences of gender diverse people. These items can also be found in a book display in the foyer of Fisher Library.


Digital humanities information and workshop sessions: 14 March 2023

The Library and Sydney Informatics Hub will be hosting a digital humanities event on March 14 for research staff, HDR students and honours students. The full program is now available for download and you can sign up for sessions online.


Morning session 

The morning session includes presentations about Digital Humanities focused support from the Library and Sydney Informatics Hub, overviews of two DH tools (the ProQuest Text and Data Mining tool and the Gale Digital Scholar Lab), and an in-person drop-in session for attendees to meet with experts from the Sydney Informatics Hub and research data management team and discuss any data, stats or technical issues. We are also excited to be including three researcher lightning talks featuring dynamic projects in the digital humanities space:

  • Melissa Kemble
  • Professor Mark Byron
  • Dr Mitchell Hobbs

Afternoon session 

The afternoon session includes workshops and presentations that focus on Digital Humanities tools and data management. You can click the link below to register – these include:

·       Australian Text Analytics Platform tools: Discursis, Juxtorpus, Quotation tool and Semantic tagger

·       Mining primary sources with the Gale Digital Scholar Lab

·       Introduction to corpus linguistic concepts and tools

·       Managing Your Research Data – Essentials

There will also be another in-person drop-in session where attendees can bring their coding, statistics and tech questions to informatics experts.

Sydney Mardi Gras 2023: WorldPride

“Gay liberation demands that everyone have the right to their own lives, their own feelings, their choice of sexual partners and their own styles of expression, behaviour and dress.” 

Written forty-seven years ago in CAMP INK, this statement is still relevant today as Sydney hosts WorldPride and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. In celebration, the University of Sydney Library is proud to present Sydney Mardi Gras 2023: WorldPride showcasing a range of Rare Books & Special Collections holdings and recent donations highlighting the evolution of the LGBTQIA+ movement.

View an original 1978 Day of International Gay Solidarity poster which promoted the event that ignited Sydney’s first public protest in solidarity with gay and lesbian people around the world experiencing persecution. Consider the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras Association’s meeting notes from 1980 documenting early amendments to the organisational rules of Mardi Gras to prioritise inclusive representation and participation. Peruse a range of Honi Soit covers in solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ movement published by the University of Sydney Student’s Representative Council (SRC) alongside key Australian LGBTQIA+ periodicals. These include the ground breaking CAMP INK created by “Campaign Against Moral Persecution Inc.”, Sydney’s first lesbian and gay political organisation formed in 1970, to William and John, one of the first commercial gay porn magazines produced in Australia, and Lesbians on the Loose which has published content and promoted events for lesbians since 1989.

You can find this exhibition at Fisher Library foyer.

Want more? Check out our recommended reading list below for Pride Month from the Library’s collection. You can also check out our full reading list if you want more recommendations!



Exciting Times

Author: Naoise Dolan

When you leave Ireland aged 22 to spend your parents’ money, it’s called a gap year. When Ava leaves Ireland aged 22 to make her own money, she’s not sure what to call it, but it involves:

– a badly-paid job in Hong Kong, teaching English grammar to rich children;
– Julian, who likes to spend money on Ava and lets her move into his guest room;
– Edith, who Ava meets while Julian is out of town and actually listens to her when she talks;
– money, love, cynicism, unspoken feelings and unlikely connections.

Exciting times ensue.

Find this title in our catalogue here


Fourteen

Author: Shannon Molloy

Optioned for a major film, Fourteen is this generation’s Holding the Man – a moving coming-of-age memoir about a young man’s search for identity and acceptance in the most unforgiving and hostile of places: high school.

Find this title in our catalogue here


Tell me how to be

Author: Neel Patel

By turns irreverent and tender, filled with the beats of ’90s R&B, Tell Me How to Be is about our earliest betrayals and the cost of reconciliation. But most of all, it is the love story of a mother and son each trying to figure out how to be in the world.

Find this title in our catalogue here


The Lost Arabs

Author: Omar Sakr

Visceral and energetic, Omar Sakr’s poetry confronts notions of identity and belonging head-on. Braiding together sexuality and divinity, conflict and redemption, The Lost Arabs is a seething, urgent collection from a distinctive new voice.

Find this title in our catalogue here


Young Mungo

Author: Douglas Stuart

From Booker-prizewinner Douglas Stuart an extraordinary, page-turning second novel, a vivid portrayal of working-class life and a highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James.

Find this title in our catalogue here


Expanding open access publishing at Sydney: Elsevier, Taylor and Francis and other international publishers announce 2023 Read and Publish agreements

illustration of people interacting with prop sized books, computers and furniture. The laptop in the middle of the image depicts a person borrowing books from the screen.

The University of Sydney Library will be part of the largest transformative open access agreement to date for Australia and New Zealand.

Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics has announced that it has signed an agreement with the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) to provide immediate open access (OA) to Australian and New Zealand research. The University of Sydney Library is a member of CAUL. The three-year Elsevier agreement represents the largest transformative open access agreement to date for Australia and New Zealand.

In addition, international scholarly journal publishers Taylor and Francis have signed a three-year transformative OA agreement with CAUL.  

Commencing in 2023, the Elsevier and Taylor and Francis agreements are part of a suite of publisher agreements that address CAUL’s goals for a rapid and sustainable transition to OA publishing.

From 1 January 2023, researchers at the University of Sydney will be able to publish their articles in selected open access journals with 13 scholarly publishers, including:

  • Elsevier ScienceDirect
  • Taylor and Francis
  • IAP Publishing
  • IOP Publishing
  • Wiley
  • Springer Nature
  • CSIRO
  • Brill
  • Oxford University Press
  • Cambridge University Press
  • De Gruyter

A list of publishers, links to included journal titles and further information will be released via the University of Sydney Library OA guide when the agreements commence.

For more information about OA publishing, see the University Library website or contact a Librarian.