9th Australian and New Zealand Rare Books Summer School – 10th to 14th February 2014

Another exciting event down under: The State Library of Victoria announces the schedule of the 9th Australian and New Zealand Rare Books Summer School to be held at the library from 10th to 14th February, 2014. The program includes lectures and courses on books on architecture and design, natural history illustration, and private presses.

Harriet Edquist - From Book to Building: Architecture and Design from the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century

Palladio’s treatise I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura (1570) was one of the most influential pattern books in European architectural history, setting out rules for architectural design that were transported across the globe. In the nineteenth century Owen Jones’s treatise The Grammar of Ornament (1856) similarly set the fashion for books on design reform. Drawing on the State Library’s rich collection of architecture and design publications from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, this course will introduce the histories of these books and their authors and it will show hew they influenced some of Melbourne’s most iconic buildings and their interiors.

John Kean - The Paper Museum: Opening Up Natural History Illustration

The desire to better understand the world through the examination of animals has driven scientific discovery since the Renaissance. The images preserved over centuries in precious volumes comprise a vast ‘paper museum’. From Robert Hooke’s humble flea to the ‘double elephant’ folios of John James Audubon, rare books provide intimate access to the great minds of science and art. The State Library's collection encompasses scientific treatises, monographs and folios. These volumes reveal the story of exploration, colonization and scientific advance, as well as shining light on the world's biological diversity.

Caren Florence - The Poetics of Printing on the Iron Hand-Press

Students will explore the printing process and the physical qualities of text. They will experience hand-rolling both wood and metal type and printing on fine papers with an iron hand-press. They will learn to use the type creatively, operate the press safely and control the ink when rolling both small typefaces and large surfaces. The emphasis will be on text as image, with poetry as the main focus.

Applications will close on Friday 6 December 2013. Numbers are strictly limited, early application is encouraged.

>>> Click here to find more information.