Archives and Special Collections

Meet Daryl Watson, an arts professional who recently completed an internship at the University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) working on a pilot program for digitising UMA's AV collection. With a background in fine arts and film, Daryl was interested to learn more about how metadata is used to make information accessible for archival records and digital preservation.

During his placement, Daryl digitised compact cassettes, created basic metadata to help establish the foundations of a record, and provided iterative feedback on workflow. He also reported on the condition of several reel-to-reel audio tapes before they were outsourced for external digitisation.

"I found a recording of Una Porter, an Australian psychiatrist and philanthropist who lived from 1900–1996, was particularly evocative. On the tape, she reads travelogues describing her journey by boat to Ceylon and then overland by train through India in the 1920s. Her measured voice, recorded late in her life, carries the gravitas of age, and the recordings capture a deeply atmospheric picture of a particular time and place. Other recordings I listened to included tapes from the George Paton Art Gallery, the Australian Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), and the Victorian Women’s Liberation and Le***an Feminist Archive (VWLLFA).

Look out for future opportunities for internships within our collections.

Meet Xiaoju Liu, our Curator, Rare East Asian who manages a collection of over 20,000 items.

The Rare East Asian Collection consists of books, scrolls, realia, stone rubbings, and ephemera, and is home to four major collections: The Harry Simon Collection, The Thomas Chong Collection, The R.F. Price Collection, and The Valery Garrett Collection.

Join Xiaoju at our next public program, Spotlight On: The lives of commoners in Pre-modern China, this Thursday, 12:30pm in the Baillieu Library.

Book your place 🔗 go.unimelb.edu.au/aoo2

Words of wisdom from a 1864 tiny book. The Routledge 's Etiquette for Ladies, measuring just 10cm, forms part of our Rare Books Collection and contains advice for all occasions in 19th century English society. We've picked out some of our favourites. Which one's yours?

✅ Do not be always witty, even though you should be so happily gifted as to need the caution. To outshine others on every occasion is the surest road to unpopularity.
✅ Notes of invitation and reply should be written on small paper of the best quality, and enclosed in envelopes to correspond.
✅ Every lady should remember that to dress well is a duty which she owes to society; but that to make it her idol is to commit something worse than a folly. Fashion is made for woman; not woman for fashion.
✅ You should never ask for a second supply of either soup or fish; it delays the next course, and keeps the table waiting.

Routledge's etiquette for ladies / by the author of the "Ball-room guide," and "Etiquette for gentlemen, 1864, London: Camden Press, Rare Books Collection.

Last week's Met Gala saw a swathe of celebrities wearing dresses referencing classical Greek sculptures, including Kendall Jenner's look inspired by Winged Victory of Samothrace, the second-century Greek statue of the goddess of victory that welcomes visitors to the Louvre.

Closer to home, our exhibition has featured works from the Visual Cultures Resource Centre's collection in the Faculty of Arts, including this silver gelatin photograph of Niobid Chiaramonti, from 1890 (printed in 1927). The statue represents one of the daughters of Niobe as she attempts to escape from the arrows of Apollo and Artemis. Acquired by the Vatican Museums, it was displayed for a long time in the Chiaramonti Museum.

While no longer on display, you can view other photographs from the VCRC collection in until it closes in late June.

Niobid Chiaramonti (4th century BC; Vatican, Rome), c.1890, printed c.1927, silver gelatin photograph, print from glass negative from Carnegie Art Reference Set for Colleges, gift of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1938, Visual Cultures Resource Centre, Faculty of Arts.

📷 by our talented Collection Management Officer, Exhibition Projects Allison O'Connell

Applications for the Joyce Thorpe Nicholson Creative Fellowship are now due by Monday 11 May, giving you more time to apply for this amazing opportunity to respond creatively to the collection.

The Fellowship is aimed at emerging writers, early career practitioners, and recent graduates, for creative work that responds to the Joyce Thorpe Nicholson collection, drawing connections and bringing new insights to the material.

Applications close at 11:55pm, Monday 11 May, AEST.

Learn more 🔗 go.unimelb.edu.au/u9tp

Image: Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas, London : The Hogarth Press, 1938, Joyce Thorpe Nicholson Collection, Rare Books Collection.

Don't miss your chance to apply for the Joyce Thorpe Nicholson Creative Fellowship.
The Fellowship is aimed at emerging writers, early career practitioners, and recent graduates, for creative work that responds to the Joyce Thorpe Nicholson Collection, drawing connections and bringing new insights to the material. The Fellowship is named in honour of University alumnus Joyce Thorpe Nicholson, and funded though her generous bequest to the University.

The successful applicant will receive a $20,000 award.
Applications close Monday 4 May. Learn more 🔗 go.unimelb.edu.au/u9tp

Developed in dialogue with The Grand Tour exhibition, Ground Tours is a temporary exhibition of fieldwork by Tributaries collective, undertaken in and around the University’s Parkville campus.

The exhibition features audiovisual works and an accompanying poster series made across three stormwater drain grills. Guided by the sonic water flow of a now-submerged creek under the campus connecting with the Birrarung, the collective conversed, made sounds, listened and vocalised across distances with each other and the ecologies that now live below ground.

Ground Tours questions traditions of walking and touring, while turning our attention to the local and unseen.

On display in the Noel Shaw Gallery, Baillieu Library from 15 – 30 April.

Learn more 🔗 go.unimelb.edu.au/7tf2

Have you explored research essays? Supporting the exhibition are a rich suite of essays written by art historians, engineers, architects and literary scholars, discussing the historical practice and ongoing legacy of the Grand Tour. All essays are available to read on the exhibition website: https://go.unimelb.edu.au/8fh2

"Things collected by Grand Tourists are the subject of ongoing disputes about the repatriation of artefacts, none more so than the Parthenon Marbles still held by the British Museum. The appropriation of classicism in contemporary culture wars has become increasingly contentious in recent years. "

Excerpt from ‘As I sat musing amidst the ruins’: The Grand Tour and Architecture by Dr Soon-Tzu Speechley, Lecturer, Urban and Cultural Heritage

The Grand Tour continues until 28 June 2026.

📷 by Christian Capurro.