One Thursday evening, in 1860, the Reverend James Robert Thackery (1827-1902) was surely pleased to present to his committee this revised edition of the West Maitland School of Arts Rule Book and library catalogue. The Reverend took great interest in this organisation for almost two decades. He believed deeply in its aims, which included the […]
Next time you park at your local shopping mall, consider how the site might have once looked before concrete, glass, and steel conquered the landscape. It’s curious to think about how such urban spaces have been transformed over time, and what might have influenced the design vision of the architect. In the 1950s and early […]
With today’s digital library resources, it’s easy to forget how libraries once relied entirely on paper catalogues. In Maitland, sometime after 1860, the librarian of the West Maitland School of Arts library (which boasted 417 volumes) cut a length of adhesive tape and stuck it along the spine of this copy of the institution’s catalogue […]
The ‘Knitting Nannas’ knit in public, and they knit for a purpose – to promote awareness and action around renewable energy. A regular feature around town in Albury, the ‘Nannas’ are prolific producers of climate change scarves which they describe as an alarmingly graphic representation of scientific data. […]
This simple tray made in the 1980s has the innocent look of a home craft project. But it was made by a prisoner at Maitland Gaol (in operation 1848-1998) where Australia’s most notorious and hardened criminals were locked away. Despite their crimes, many Maitland prisoners put their time inside to good use. To keep prisoners […]
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