5 Rare Books
Rare Books Library had another successful year, with strong support from the Friends
of the Library and its loyal donors. 4697 items from the collection were
used in 1997.
The year began with the "Dial Melbourne 5412" exhibition still on
display. The curator of this exhibition was Professor Jenny Zimmer of the School
of Art and Design, Caulfield campus.
On 26 March the exhibition "Early Medical Books", was opened. This
consisted of books on permanent loan from the AMA, from Dr. Richard Travers, and
from the Rare Books Collection. The opening took place at a Friends of the
Library function.
The next exhibition "Modern German Artists", was a travelling
exhibition organised by the Goethe Institute. It showed modern artists' books
from Germany, and opened on 1 May.
The opening, by Dr Horst Pastoors, Director of the Goethe Institute, was a
joint Friends of the Library/Goethe Institute function. This exhibition has
since generated donations of other artists' books.
The next exhibition, opened on 24 July, was on the Restoration period. It was
opened by Professor Harold Love and coincided with the completion of Professor
Love's edition of the Earl of Rochester's Poems. Some first and early editions
Rochester's works were among the items on display.
The final exhibition, "Sexpectations", was put on by four students
from the Centre for Women's Studies, under the direction of Dr. Maryanne Dever
from the Centre. It was opened on 20th October by Professor David Robinson, the
Vice-Chancellor.
All the 1997 exhibitions were mounted on the Rare Books home-page. Visual
highlights from the exhibitions appear there as well as the full text of the
catalogues. The catalogues were advertised on Ex-Libris, the international rare
books e-mail list and the response in terms of demand for catalogues was very
good, especially for the Restoration catalogue.
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