include the only known copy of a minia- ture almanac from 1786, produced by John Magee in Dublin. Usually the rarity of an almanac is in the number for a particular year. In this instance the entire run has almost disappeared – the only other material evidence of its existence is a single copy of the issue for 1781, held at Trinity College, Dublin.
Research value
If you are working on seventeenth-cen- tury female ownership, compiling a census of copies of the Kelmscott Chaucer, or examining early annota- tions on Restoration plays, you need to take every copy you can into account, and that means looking abroad. Sydney contributes. In 1634 Mrs Alice Malory signed her copy of The recuile of the histories of Troie (1553) at the State Library – thereby adding to the steadily increasing body of evidence of seven- teenth-century women owning English books and, alas, of their frivolity in reading romances.
One Elizabeth Windebank owned the
Australia holds far fewer rare books than the United Kingdom, but that it holds as many as it does. For some of its books are truly enviable. We may be proud in the UK; we cannot be arrogant.
Books about travel, discovery and natu- ral history are especially rich at the State Library, especially when they pertain to Australia. John William Lewin’s Birds of New Holland (London, 1808; 18 coloured plates with descriptive letterpress) was reprinted in Sydney in 1813 as Birds of New South Wales, the first natural history work published in Australia. In 1822, along came A Natural History of the Birds of New South Wales (London), with 26 coloured plates. Watermarks on the plates reveal that it was subsequently reissued with an unaltered title page in 1825, 1826, 1827 and 1829.
Library Hub Discover records one copy
of Birds of New South Wales. The State Library has five. It is not stock-piling, for copies differ. In some, a printed label has been pasted on each plate naming the relevant bird in English and Latin and declaring: “Published as the Act directs”, while in others it has not, and one copy has a nineteenth plate, a second picture of the mountain bee-eater. Whereas Library Hub Discover records copies of A Natural History of the Birds of New South Wales from 1822 and 1825, the State Library has copies with all the different watermarks. They add to our understanding of this particular publication and of natural his- tory publishing more broadly (cf the 1845 reprint of John Sibthorp’s Flora Graeca, which masquerades as the first edition). Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, who thought mistakenly that he had discovered
26 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Australia, is superbly represented, not least with copies of all variants of his Terra Australis Incognita, or, A New South- erne Discouerie (1617). Some editions of early-seventeenth-century Dutch explo- ration to the East Indies, often illustrated, are extremely rare. My favourite is a copy of Joris van Spilbergen’s Newe Schifffahrt einer dreyjährigen Reyse (1605) which once belonged to King Charles II and in which the picture on the title page has been hand-coloured. Erotica, of the kind collected by Eliot-Phelips (British Library) and Alec Craig (Senate House Library, University of London) is also rare. Some books are even unique. The State Library has the only recorded copy of Association, or, The Furious Protestants: A Descriptive Poem (1780), an anonymous poem published as a pamphlet about the Gordon Riots of 1780. Rare almanacs
Library’s First Folio at some point in the seventeenth century. We cannot be sure who she was. If she was the Elizabeth Windebank who was born in Inverray, she was reading as quite a young woman – in 1684, aged 23, she became Eliza- beth Graham, and quite apart from her name change, it is hard to imagine the ten children she then bore allowing her much reading time later. The State Library is working to increase its research value, enhancing provenance information on catalogue records and reporting all relevant holdings to the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC).
Summing up Birds of New South Wales, 1813.
Both parties benefited from the secondment. I delivered rare books training which is not offered in Australia, contributed to the acquisitions and engagement programmes, and provided enhanced metadata searchability for engagement and research purposes. I deepened my understanding of public engagement and gained considerable teaching confidence and experience. I received warmth, made professional connections, and forged friendships. Activities are transferable. Profession- ally, distances within Australia render online assistance essential. Although distances are a lesser barrier in the UK, solo librarians cannot always access in-person training. They, too, require online help. Academically, copies of books in Australian libraries can inform British scholarship. Collections are reciprocal, with Sydney holdings bolster our knowledge of British and European print history. I left with a desire to further international collabo- ration for mutual benefit. IP
April-May 2024
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