Past Programs
Galleries, Libraries and Museums - 2008
National Poetry Slam
01/12/2008
Literary critic Harold Bloom called it the 'death of art' but to some poets, slamming has given poetry a new life. From its beginning in Chicago in the 1980s, this cabaret style word duel has spread around the world—including to Australia. Since June, performance poets from Broome to Dubbo have competed in slam heats and the finalists are converging on Thursday 4 December at the Sydney Opera House for the Australian Poetry Slam final.
Moving Galleries: train poetry
26/11/2008
Do you stare out the window when you're on the train, listen to music, read the newspaper or your own book? Now, if you're in Melbourne, you can also read haikus and ponder art.
With Connex, the Committee for Melbourne has put up poetry inside the carriages of 40 trains in all.
The Book Show's Sarah L'Estrange travelled the Glen Waverley line with some of the poets whose work is in these 'Moving Galleries'.
Toad, Mole and Anne of Green Gables turn 100 Read Transcript
29/09/2008
We celebrate the centenary of two books which have had enduring appeal for children and adults: Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery, about plucky, red-haired orphan Anne Shirley, and Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, featuring the wonderful animal characters of Mole, Badger, Ratty and Toad of Toad Hall.
The Reading Room installation
18/09/2008
A 'cacophony' of books -- this is how Jayne Dyer describes the door sized photographs in her art exhibition called The Reading Room.
The exhibition is, in part, based on her residency at the historic Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney, where the famous McCleay library began -- and then ended a mere few years later -- in the early days of the colony.
The Book Show's Sarah L'Estrange went to Uber Gallery, a small art space in Melbourne where the installation is on show, where artist Jayne Dyer gave her a tour of The Reading Room.
Art books
15/08/2008
Do you ever find yourself drawn to publications full of seductive images, flipping through pages just to stare at the pictures - alluring, double-page spreads of glossy full colour images? We're talking, of course, about art books.
Art publishing - catalogues, monographs, art history, art theory, art criticism - is an industry in itself, with very exacting standards.
Joining Peter Mares to discuss art and books is arts writer Chris McAuliffe, Director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne. Chris's most recent publication is Possible Histories a monograph on the work of Melbourne artist Jon Cattapan, who also joins the discussion. With them is John Dunn, publisher of Piper Press, which specialises in books about contemporary Australian artists.
Southern Lands through French Eyes Read Transcript
11/08/2008
Josephine Bonaparte is said to have kept kangaroos and emus in her garden after the 19th century French expedition of Nicholas Baudin and Francois Peron returned from Australia. At the time, an Atlas about this voyage was also created and the Atlas has just been published in facsimilie for the first time in Australia by the Friends of the State Library of South Australia.
Inscriptions and marginalia - a tradition of annotations (repeat)
01/08/2008
How many of you feel comfortable about picking up a pen or pencil and writing inside a book that you might be reading? Although some people might consider this to be disrespectful of the work, there's a long tradition of inscribing thoughts around an existing text. A loose definition for these sorts of annotations is 'Marginalia'. Today on The Book Show we revisit a discussion about the function and value of these inscriptions over the centuries and what they can tell us about the journey a book has taken.
Joining the conversation are three people who have spent a great deal of time surrounded by books of all descriptions.
Professor Margaret Manion is one of Australia's most eminent and valued Art Historians, and brings a deep understanding of Medieval and Renaissance books and manuscripts.
Dr Nikki Hessell teaches Communication and Journalism at Massey University in New Zealand. Prior to that Nikki worked closely with Professor Heather Jackson in Toronto, studying the Marginalia of the Romantic Period, and especially the prolific annotations by Samuel Coleridge - and together Nikki and Heather produced a book called Romantic Readers: The Evidence of Marginalia.
And our third guest is Kay Craddock, whose antiquarian bookshop is something of an institution in Melbourne. Kay and her parents have been dealing in rare and valuable works for many decades and she brings a rich knowledge of the world of the book collector, and the importance of marginalia in determining the provenance and the authenticity of books.
(First broadcast 19/10/2007)
Timbuktu manuscripts: Rodney Hall Read Transcript
21/07/2008
The Timbuktu manuscripts tell a history of African trade and scholarship. They include texts about astronomy, poetry, music, medicine, religion and women's rights. Because of their significance to African history there is a joint African movement to preserve them. Rodney Hall, one of our most eminent writers, has just been to Timbuktu and describes what he found.
The future of public libraries Read Transcript
13/06/2008
Public libraries in New South Wales have threatened to charge for services if they don't get more funding. Library users continually say they want more books and more book-based programs, but would a fee-for-service be too high a price to pay for improved resources?
During the course of this week The Book Show asked for your thoughts on public libraries and why they are important - and we've been overwhelmed by the response. The majority view has been that libraries are an incredibly valuable community resource, that they deserve better treatment from government - and that forcing library users to pay for services would be a retrograde step.
The libraries of East Timor Read Transcript
02/06/2008
How crucial are libraries for the restoration of knowledge and culture in a new country working to build an identity? Kirsty Sword Gusmão and librarian Patti Manolis discuss the role of libraries in East Timor.
Restoring the Montefiascone Library
17/04/2008
One imagines that anyone working with rare books must harbour a private fantasy about one day stumbling upon a collection of books that has remained hidden, or at least unrecognised for its true historical value. And the grand fantasy must surely be the discovery of an entire library that has been forgotten, neglected or ignored.
Well, such a library did come to light about 20 years ago, in the central Italian hill town of Montefiascone, a village that straddles a crater rim overlooking one of the largest volcanic lakes in Europe - Lago Bolseno.
A Seminary was built on the crater's edge, in the late 17th Century, by Marcantonio Barbarigo - the Bishop of Montefiascone and Corneto - and the focus of the Seminary, for the Bishop, was a beautiful library with vaulted ceilings and trompe l'oeil paintings. Over time this library became a space, not just for theological study but also for secular learning.
The library sustained serious damage during the Napoleonic Wars and then again during the 2nd World War. But nothing was quite as devastating as the building of a shower block directly above the library, during the early 20th Century. Subsequent major leaks through the roof did terrible damage to the collection, turning the library into a damp, mouldy habitat for rats, birds, fleas and all manner of other ravenous beasties.
UK-based Australian book conservator Cheryl Porter, was approached in 1987 to give advice on how best to approach the formidable job of trying to stop the damage and start the slow job of restoring the library to its former glory. Cheryl enlisted the help of one of Britain's most experienced rare book specialists - Nicolas Barker - who was, for many years, Deputy Keeper at the British Library, responsible for Conservation and Special Materials. Over the next 20 years, Nicolas and Cheryl organised volunteer groups of conservation specialists to visit the library annually, and in 1992 The Book Show's Michael Shirrefs joined one of these conservation teams. When he recently caught up again with Cheryl Porter and Nicolas Barker to find out how the project's progressing, he asked Cheryl about her first visit to the library, 21 years ago.
Arthur Boyd's artist book: Sangkuriang, a mythical Indonesian story
11/01/2008
Sangkuriang is a collaborative work between Indra Deigun and Arthur Boyd, who created swirling, magical images to accompany this mythical Indonesian story about volcanoes and strange, unearthly creatures. It was printed in 1993 and is in the State Library of Queensland artist book collection.
The Book Show's Sarah L'Estrange spoke to librarian Helen Cole about this book, which is one of her most treasured items in the collection.
