Collections
The National Library holds some 10 000 000 collection items of national heritage significance. These include manuscripts, books, pictures, music and ephemera. The podcasts below provide another perspective on some of the highlights from the Library’s collections. For more podcasts on our collections see the media page
Download mp3: 23.9 Mb
The Globalisation of the Mingei Aesthetic. Japan Fellow, Dr Chiaki Ajioka
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Duration 47:09
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation: The Globalisation of the Mingei Aesthetic. Japan Fellow, Dr Chiaki Ajioka, examines the impact of the Japanese Mingei (folk craft) ideal on Western craft movements in the USA and Australia during the twentieth century.
Download mp3: 31.3 Mb
The Australian who Invented the Commonwealth: Professor James Cotton
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Wednesday, 8 May 2013
Duration 1:07:18
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation: The Australian who Invented the Commonwealth
Professor James Cotton discusses the remarkable career of the Australian H. Duncan Hall, from his pioneering work through the League of Nations to the transformation of the British Empire into the Commonwealth.
Download mp3: 43.3 Mb
Transnational Connections: Professor Neville Kirk
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Wednesday, 17 Apr 2013
Duration 1:22:01
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation: Transnational Connections: Labour Networks across Australia, New Zealand and
Britain
Professor Neville Kirk discusses Tom Mann and Robert Ross, activists, educators and journalists. Neville Kirk is an Emeritus Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom.
Download mp3: 32.9 Mb
Nancy Keesing and the Naked Book - Dr Lyn Gallacher
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Friday, 30 Nov 2012
Duration 58:45
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation: Dr Lyn Gallacher explores one of the delights of Keesing’s archive: her exchange of letters between 1966 and 1974 with writer David Martin. The correspondence shows Keesing’s version of ‘national identity’ expanding during a critical period in the growth of Australian cultural awareness.
Download mp3: 36.5 Mb
Editors Emergent: How Clem Christesen and Stephen Murray-Smith Found Their Vocation.
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Wednesday, 24 Oct 2012
Duration 57:54
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation: Professor Jim Davidson discusses Melbourne’s little magazine culture from 1940 to 1988. (please note this recording is missing introductory content)
Download mp3: 36.5 Mb
Melodrama in Meiji Japan: The NLA Clough collection of woodblock printed frontispieces (kuchi-e)
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Friday, 19 Oct 2012
Duration 57:54
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation: Dr Gary Hickey, the current Japan Fellow. is a curator and scholar of Japanese art. He is a research fellow at the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland and is on the directorial board of the Tokyo-based International Ukiyo-e Society.
Download mp3: 37.8 Mb
Memories of War: The Stories of Vietnamese Veterans in Australia
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Tuesday, 25 Sep 2012
Duration 1:12:05
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation: Associate Professor Nathalie Nguyen will discuss her work on migration and memory, and the oral histories of Vietnamese veterans in Australia.
Download mp3: 42.8 Mb
Policing and the Power of Thai Amulets
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Monday, 27 Aug 2012
Duration 49:34
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation: Craig Reynolds is a Southeast Asian historian with a research interest in modern Thai cultural and intellectual history.
Download mp3: 26.7Mb
Burma-Watching: A Retrospective
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Tuesday, 26 Jun 2012
Duration: 0:41:48
Format:
mp3 audio
Dr Andrew Selth surveys a wide range of sources to see how perceptions of Burma have changed over time. He has been watching this fascinating country for 40 years, as a diplomat, strategic intelligence analyst and research scholar.
Download mp3: 27.9Mb
Notes towards an Autobiography: Patrick White, Writing, Politics and the Fijian-Indian-Australian Experience
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Wednesday, 20 Jun 2012
Duration: 0:41:43
Format:
mp3 audio
Professor Satendra Nandan discusses the influence of Patrick White on his life, his writing and on his political and spiritual thinking in a postcolonial society.
Download mp3: 50.5Mb
Coal Seam Gas—‘Frack’ or ‘Frack-off’?
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Duration: 1:13:29
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Dr Luke Keogh explores the quiet history of coal seam gas
and examines new oral history interviews from the Library’s
collection that shed light on local community views of
the industry..
Mining for Meaning
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Duration: 1:09:57
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Tim Sherratt reveals how we can use new digital technologies to explore the content of Australian newspapers.
Download mp3: 41.3Mb
Tidelines: The influence of the Hawkesbury River on the poetry of Robert Adamson
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Friday, 4 May 2012
Duration: 1:03:39
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Dr. Anthony Lawrence presents
Tidelines: The influence of the Hawkesbury River on the poetry of Robert Adamson
Download mp3: 35.9Mb
Melanesia: The History and Politics of an Idea
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Wednesday, 16 Nov 2011
Duration: 58:51
Format:
mp3 audio
Stephanie Lawson is Professor of Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University. Her research focuses on postcolonial approaches to history and politics in the Pacific Islands, with a particular focus on the tensions between anthropological and humanist approaches.
Download mp3:
Susannah Helman mp3 17.52Mb (26:32)
Robyn Holmes mp3 19.93Mb (30:09)
Matthew Jones mp3 16.59Mb (23:39)
Treasures Gallery Family Day
Contributor:National Library Publications
Date published: Wednesday, 19 Oct 2011
Duration: various
Format:
mp3 audio
Curator talks by Susannah Helman, Robyn Holmes and Matthew Jones held during the Treasures Gallery family day on Monday 10 October 2011 at the National Library of Australia.
Download mp3: 48.5 Mb
'Exposing the Australians in focus' Australiana Photo-books of the late 1960s
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Wednesaday, 27 Jul 2011
Duration 52:51
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation:
Australiana Photo-books of the late 1960s
In the late 1960s, Australia's best writers, designers and
photographers collaborated to create photo-books
that generated a vibrant discussion of Australian
identity.
Presented by Dr Martyn Jolly.
Download mp3: 41.8 Mb
Shrieking-Cockatoos
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Thursday, 15 Jun 2011
Duration 45:31
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation:
The Fight for Women's Suffrage in Australia and Britain
After they gained the right to vote in 1902, a group of Australian women involved in the Australian suffrage campaign visited Britain and became committed to the cause of their British sisters. Presented by Dr Béatrice Bjon
Download mp3: 34.30 Mb
The Actor's Mirror
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Thursday, 5 May 2011
Duration 49:55
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation: From the Riverbed to the Emperor's Gaze
The Kabuki Woodblock Prints of Toyohara Kunichika (1835–1900)
Amy Reigle Newland's talk focuses on three Kabuki stars from the Meiji period (1868–1912)—Ichikawa Danjūrō IX, Onoe Kikugorō V and Ichikawa Sadanji I—and their portrayal by the premier artist of actor imagery at the time, Toyohara Kunichika.
Download mp3: 37.46 Mb
Soldiers of Tin
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Friday, 11 Feb 2011
Duration 39:53
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation:
Nature and Labour in Colonial Australasia
Dr Amrita Malhi's presentation discusses questions in relation to the tin mines established by the Billiton Company in its place of origin on Belitung Island, off Sumatra in the Netherlands East Indies.
Download mp3: 48.70 Mb
Balancing between Empires
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Friday, 10 Dec 2010
Duration 57:46
Format:
mp3 audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation: The Early Years of the Australian Instituteof International Affairs
Dr Priscilla Roberts explores how prominent Australians, such as Sir Frederic Eggleston, viewed the AIIA and sought to balance and negotiate conflicting interests.
'Gold and Wool Are So Yesterday'
Contributor: National Library Publications
Date published: Friday, 10 Dec 2010
Duration 1:00:36
Format:
mp3 audio, m4a audio
Harold White Fellow Presentation Charting Japan's Observations of Australia's Resources Development
Dr Donna Weeks examines the ways in which ‘natural resources’ have underpinned the relationship between Japan and Australia for more than a century and Australia’s current and future relations in the Asia-Pacific region.
Download mp3:
Susan-Hall mp3 7.1 Mb (07:45)
Martin-Terry mp3 6.2 Mb (06:51)
Writings on the Endeavour Journal
Contributor: National Museum of Australia
Date published: Monday, 18 May 2009
Duration: various
Format:
mp3 audio
Susan Hall and Martin Terry from the National Library discuss Lieutenant James Cook's Endeavour Journal at
the 'Writing Captain Cook' symposium
held at the National Museum of Australia.
View the digitised journal.
