We want to collect your stories describing your experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Library is creating a collection that documents the university experience of staff and students during the COVID-19 pandemic. We want to collect your videos, personal reflections, artworks, photographs, stories, poetry and other expressions of your own experience to help us record this essential part of University history for generations to come. This collection will be made publicly available to be used in research, teaching and for public interest.
Not sure where to start? Consider writing a message to the future:
Imagine you’re sending a message to someone in the future. This may be your future self, your descendants, your community or even someone opening a time capsule from today in a future century. What would you like them to know about the pandemic as experienced through your daily life, your hopes, your fears, what you’ve observed or learnt, unexpected surprises and joys? Your message may take in any form – written, illustrated, composed, sound-based, video, a zine, 3D, or something else entirely. You can give it to us as a digital file(s), or a physical item.
Visit the Collecting COVID-19 website to find out how to share your story. All submissions will be reviewed in line with scope of this collection. Unfortunately, this means we won’t be able to accept everything for the final collection.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a particularly tough time for many people, please remember that there are ways for you to get support:
Support through the University of Sydney (for staff and students)
Library spaces have closed and services have changed.
To prioritise wellness within the university community, all University Library sites on all campuses are closed from today, 6pm, Wednesday 25 March 2020 until further notice. This includes all 24/7 Library spaces.
For more information on the University Library’s response to COVID-19 and to learn about the library support available to you, please see our COVID-19 Support webpage: https://library.sydney.edu.au/help/covid-19/.
The Library will remain open online and continue providing support for research and study. A Chat Now service will be available Monday–Thursday 8am–10pm, and Friday 8am–8pm.
Additionally, the Library’s extensive electronic collection of more than 1 million scholarly ejournals and eBooks are available 24/7 from any global location.
External library return chutes will remain open at Fisher, SciTech and Health Sciences libraries.
We look forward to seeing and helping you soon online!
Starting Monday 24 February 2020, opening and information desk hours during semester will change in some Library sites.
We will also expand our online support available to staff
and students through our live online chat service, Chat Now. From Semester 1,
Chat Now will operate from 10am-10pm Monday to Thursday, and 10am-8pm on
Fridays.
Chat
Now is the Library’s live online chat service which enables clients to
ask questions and talk to Library staff in real-time. The extended hours mean clients
can access support when they need it most, wherever they might be: in the
library, at home or anywhere in the world!
Changes across sites include the following:
Fisher and Law Libraries
Fisher and Law Libraries will remain open to staff and students 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, Library information desks (and equipment kept behind the desk) will close at 8pm, Monday to Friday.
After 8pm, you can chat with Library staff online via Chat
Now until 10pm, Monday to Thursday.
To provide more support to students on Sundays, the Fisher Information desk will open from 9am-5pm each Sunday. This means staff and students in Fisher and Law Libraries can get more in-person support Sunday mornings at the Fisher Information desk. However, the Law Information Library desk will be open on Sundays from 1-5pm.
Monday-Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Fisher & Law Libraries
24/7
24/7
24/7
24/7
Fisher desk
8am-8pm
8am-8pm
9am-5pm
9am-5pm
Law desk
8am-8pm
8am-8pm
9am-5pm
1pm-5pm
ChatNow
10am-10pm
10am-8pm
–
–
_
Members of the public, Alumni and community borrowers only have access to this space during information desk hours.
SciTech Library
SciTech Library will remain open to staff and students 8am-10pm, Monday to Thursday, with extended hours on Fridays. However, the SciTech Information desk (and equipment kept behind the desk) will close at 8pm, Monday to Friday.
After 8pm, you can chat with Library staff online via Chat
Now until 10pm, Monday to Thursday.
Monday-Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
SciTech Library
8am-10pm
8am-10pm
9am-5pm
1pm-5pm
SciTech desk
8am-8pm
8am-8pm
9am-5pm
1pm-5pm
ChatNow
10am-10pm
10am-8pm
–
–
_
Members of the public, Alumni and community borrowers only have access to this space during information desk hours.
Nursing Library
Nursing Library will now open at 9am, Monday to Friday.
Monday-Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Nursing
9am-7pm
9am-5pm
–
–
ChatNow
10am-10pm
10am-8pm
–
–
_
Health Sciences and Conservatorium Libraries
In response to feedback from you, there are no changes to opening or information desk hours at the Health Sciences and Conservatorium Libraries.
Monday-Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Health Sciences
8am-9pm
8am-6pm
10am-5pm
1pm-5pm
Conservatorium
8am-8pm
8am-6pm
10am-5pm
–
ChatNow
10am-10pm
10am-8pm
–
–
_
Chat Now
We will extend Chat Now hours to provide you with live
online support when you need it most! You can now chat live with Library staff with
any questions you might have from 10am -10pm, Monday to Thursday and 10am-8pm
on Fridays.
Monday-Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
ChatNow
10am-10pm
10am-8pm
–
–
_
_
All these changes will be implemented from Monday 24 February 2020.
For more information on Library site and opening ours, visit the locations & opening hours page on our website.
Staff and student questions, suggestions and feedback can be made through the Library’s Suggestion & feedback form.
Safely resting in the archives of our Library lives a copy of the text that rewrote the rule book on Earth and space Principia (Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica), recently featured on ABC’s 7.30 report.
Title page of The Principia, 1687.
First published in 1687, the text is one of the most important books on natural philosophy in which Newton establishes the modern science of dynamics and outlines his three laws of motion.
The University of Sydney copy is one of only four known copies that were sent by Newton and his assistant Roger Cotes to other mathematicians in order to eliminate any errors in a second edition. The other copies are all located in the Northern Hemisphere – two in the University of Cambridge Library and one in the Library of Trinity College.
Behind the scenes: Rare Books and Special Collections Manager Julie Sommerfeldt being interviewed by ABC’s Jason Om
Behind the scenes: Professor Geordie Williamson, Director of the Sydney Mathematical Research Institute at the University explaining the significance of Principia
The report uncovers how the Library came to have this important copy and the significance of the rare text.
Do you
need to analyse large volumes of text in your research? Would you like your
class to learn about text and data mining research methods? The Library can
assist with our new text and data mining support service.
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Text mining
is the process of applying computational methods to large scale text datasets
to discover new insights that may not be revealed through reading and analysis
at a human scale. This approach can open-up new areas of scholarly enquiry,
enhance your research practise or provide your students with new research
methods.
The
Library is currently trialling a text and data mining support service for
Higher Degree Research Students and Academic Staff.
Some of
the support services include:
Access to online information & subscribed tools
Advice on resources for text and data mining
Consultation on text and data mining concepts
Consultation for forming a search strategy for corpora creation
Delivery of lectures and hands on training sessions for undergraduate classes
Negotiation for expansion of Library subscribed collections & digitised cultural collections for mining
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:
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.
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.
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.
Did you know that out of the estimated 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in Australia, 120 are still spoken and approximately 90% are endangered?
This year in the Library, we’ve started a project to add in additional spelling variations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages into our records.
Now you can more easily search & discover items in our collections that feature Indigenous Australian languages.
For example, whether your preferred spelling is “Kamilaroi”, “Gamilaraay” or Gamilaroi, you’ll now be able to find resources like Gagan = Colours, a picture book written for Gamilaraay language learners by Suellyn Tighe, a Gamilaraay woman and University of Sydney graduate.
“Our languages are inextricably linked to who we are. It encapsulates our identity and connection to country whilst maintaining links to the past, present and future through our stories and songs” says Suellyn Tighe.
A selection of resources in our collections with AUSTLANG codes. From L to R: Gagan = colours by Suellyn Tighe (Language code: D23), Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay, guwaaldanha ngiyani = We are speaking Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay / Accompiled by the Walgett Yuwaalaraay and Gamilaraay Language Program. (Language code: D23 and D27), The rainbow by Ros Moriarty (Language code: N153) and Apmwe-kenhe arne = The snake’s tree by by Margaret Heffernan (Language code: C8)
This work is also timely as the United Nations General Assembly have declared 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IY2019). Australian indigenous languages are increasingly recognised as a precious global resource and IY2019 is an opportunity to raise awareness and to provide an opportunity to achieve positive change through improving the promotion and preservation of these languages.
“The importance of our languages being spoken between generations can not be undervalued or replaced. We are fortunate to live in times when technologies can assist us to ensure that our languages are not forgotten. It does not replace human interaction, though it does provide us with the opportunity and ability to ensure our and future generations have a connection to ancestral belonging and knowledge.” says Suellyn Tighe.
This project is based on AUSTLANG,
an online resource developed by Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), which provides comprehensive information on
the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages spoken across Australia in an
effort to preserve our Indigenous Australian languages and what we know about
them.
This NAIDOC week, you can learn more about the languages of Australia by looking up your local language using the AUSTLANG website and searching our Library for language resources.
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
