Rare Books – Did you know the UC library has a collection?
By Ruby Thomas
The library houses a wealth of resources covering a diverse array of disciplines. Included in the catalogue are some of the most special and intriguing publications on campus.
More than 3,500 rare materials - including books, maps, and photographs – are available at the library. Thanks to recent renovations, there’s been a specialist room built on level D to store the collection.
I recently met with the library’s Learning Hub team leader, Lisa Roulstone, who gave me the rundown on what students and staff can expect from the new rare books room.
The rare books collection is currently stored on the elusive level A where it’s difficult for students and staff to access them, but Lisa said the new room will change this.
“With the master plan for the university, we’re hoping to develop that area down on level A, so we thought, what a great spot to put them on level D where all our other books are.
It’s a really quiet place and it’s in something called a jewellery box, so it’s all glass, and you can look in and you can see all the books in there being old and amazing!” Lisa said.
The rare books room (July 2024)
The majority of the collection is from the 1900s with approximately a quarter from the 1800s. The collection even contains a book published in 1551, Desiderius Erasmus’ Paraphrase of Erasmus upon the New Testament, First volume, a translation of the New Testament which Mary I of England once ordered be destroyed, despite translating John’s Gospel herself.
The collection is made up entirely of donations, and many items are the last copies in Australia. They cover a variety of subjects, including:
Book preservation, book binding, book collectors, paper marbling and international samples of paper types;
American presidents, including books, papers and speeches;
Gardening and landscape architecture; and
Maps and photographs of the Canberra region, including photographs of Canberra before the January 2003 bushfires and railway maps for a potential train from Canberra to Jervis Bay.
The collection also has a sports collection, focusing on fencing, wrestling and cricket. This collection holds the entire series of Bailey’s magazine, a sports and recreation magazine from the 1800s.
Lisa said children’s literature makes up a significant proportion of the collection, with over 200 rare children’s books owned by the library. She said many of the children’s literature books are the last copies in Australia, and in some cases, the last copies in the world.
Additionally, the collection boasts an array of Australian history books, including colonial books and resources from the Eastern Nepean area, but there are restrictions on viewing these.
“We have a lot of colonial books, [but] we do keep them locked away because they’re not really culturally appropriate anymore,” Lisa said.
To keep the materials in good condition, the rare books room is engineered to have the perfect conservation environment.
Lisa said the room has special humidity controls to maintain the correct temperature. The books will also be set on metal shelves as opposed to the wooden shelving used elsewhere in the library.
Before opening the room to staff and students, the materials will go through a cleaning process.
“We’re hoping to work with the conservation students to clean the books, because they’re quite dusty, they’ve been kept in level A and they need a bit of rejuvenation. And so our hope is for the conservation students to do placement, clean the books, and then bring them back and put them in level D,” Lisa said.
The rare books room is scheduled to open early next year, where the UC community can enjoy them in the dedicated space.
Until then, students and staff can still view the rare materials on request at the library.