2001
Recent acquisitions
13 December 2001 - 6 May 2002
The exhibition highlighted acquisitions by the Rare Book Collection and looking at it was a good way to gain an idea of the breadth of the Rare Book Collection.
There were examples of 17th and 18th century works as well as publications from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among the items on display were artist's books, one in the form of a box of cakes, another presented like a box of chocolates. There were also manuscripts, including two hand-made children's books produced in Melbourne in the 1940s. Some Australian classics are featured, for example, a first edition of The Magic Pudding.
More recent publications displayed included women's magazines such as Australian Women's Weekly.
TCA: Twentieth Century Australia
14 June-12 October 2001
This exhibition had two streams. In one we are taken through Australia's history, decade by decade, from Federation to Y2K.
In the other we are shown a series of clusters of material chosen to illustrate aspects of our lives; themes include, the family, food and wine, crime, sport, and sex.
Outside the mainstream
19 October 2000 - 28 February 2001
All rare book collections have holdings of limited-edition, private press books. Here at Monash University we have a long-standing interest in this field. The "History of the Book" has always been one of our areas of teaching and research. We have our Centre for the Book, and we also have the Ancora Press where hand-printing is carried on under the tutelage of Dr. Brian McMullin.
Dr. McMullin chose widely from the items in the Rare Book Collection to demonstrate the beauty of type-faces, and the role of book design in private press publishing.