New online journal The Fashion archives, which launched last week, focuses on Queensland fashion stories, past and present, by exploring heritage collections from public and private collections, large and small.

The Fashion archives describes itself as "Nimble in its approach to the bricks and mortar traditions of the costume archive and the fashion exhibition, {the} digital format is exploited to show a massive range of materials, including collections of garments and archival images not normally exhibited due to their fragile states".

It is curated by Brisbane-based researchers Nadia Buick and Madeleine King.

You can browse the first issue online or find it via the UQ Library catalogue.

During September 1967, Archdeacon Edward Leo Hayes made the arrangements which saw his vast collection of books, manuscripts, documents, anthropological and geological specimens and assorted realia sent to the University of Queensland. The collection left an invaluable legacy to UQ's Fryer Library and anthropology museum.

In the fiftieth anniversary of UQ's RD Milns Antiquities Museum, Senior Museum Officer James Donaldson outlines Father Hayes' contribution to the Antiquities Museum's collection of ancient coins.

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The Hayes collection of ancient coins consists of fifty one individual coins. In 1979, when first added to the museum collection, they represented a significant increase to the number and range of the museum's coin holdings; the donation remains the largest single coin donation in the museum's history.

In particular, the Hayes coins represent a substantial part of the museum's late Roman collection. Of the twenty emperors represented in the Hayes coins (from Hadrian to Justinian), ten of these, including notable figures such as Commodus, are not represented by any other coin in the collection.

The oldest coin in the collection is a bronze Tetradrachm from Alexandria, minted in 112 AD by the Emperor Trajan, while the youngest coin dates to 602 AD and was minted in Byzantium by the emperor Justinian I (pictured).

One of the most interesting coins from the Hayes collection is a small Roman coin called a Follis, depicting on the front, the goddess Roma wearing a helmet and cloak and on the back, the Roman she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus (below). This type was minted by the emperor Constantine the Great around 330-331 AD and matched issues commemorating the foundation of Constantinople (modern Istanbul) as the capital of the eastern Roman Empire.

Coins from the Hayes collection have been used in teaching activities for the last 35 years. Countless school students from Brisbane and many generations of undergraduate students have used these coins in their studies of the ancient world.

- James Donaldson.

The R.D. Milns Antiquites Museum is open to the public 9 am to 5 pm, Monday to Friday and is located on Level 2 of UQ's Michie Building. The current exhibition Then and Now: Fifty years of antiquities 1963 to 2013 explores the history of the museum and the people who have shaped its collection. For more information visit the museum's new website.

During the week beginning 3 June, Fryer Library will be working with a moving company to relocate over 1500 boxes of manuscript material to a new store, located at the Gatton campus. We have taken this step due to space constraints, especially as our collections continue to grow.

During the move, there will be some delays in accessing materials, while the movers are working.

To avoid any delays, please email (fryer@library.uq.edu.au) or telephone (+61 7 3365 6236) your requests for Fryer Library materials, at least 24 hours before your visit. As always, our staff will help you access material as soon as possible.

Once the move is complete, the catalogue records for those 1500 boxes, and our webpage, will be updated with information on how you can request them. We will also keep you up to date on our blog.

Many thanks for your understanding and patience, as we continue to manage our growing collection.

-- The Fryer Library team.

The theme for this year's Harmony Day is Many Stories - One Australia.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship, who organises the celebrations of Harmony day each year on the 21st of March, describes the importance of sharing stories in celebrating Australia's diversity:

Let's go beyond the cover of the book and wander through the pages of each other's story. It's a way we can learn and understand.

With this year's emphasis on sharing stories, we wanted to share some Fryer materials which contain stories of diversity in Australia:

• A new addition to our collection, A Norwegian waltz explores the stories of Norwegian immigrants in Queensland from 1870-1914 (also available online).
• The collections of Elaine Smith and Julian Burnside & Kate Durham shed light on the experiences of people seeking refuge in Australia.
• Daisy Marchisotti's papers reflect her activism, particularly regarding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and racism issues.
• The Queensland Experience (edited by Maximilian Brandle) documents the life and work of 14 migrants to our state.

On November 22nd, The Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature was given to Herb Wharton.

As an Indigenous writer, poet and storyteller, Herb Wharton is best known for his 1992 breakthrough novel Unbranded (commissioned by The University of Queensland Press), Cattle Camp , Where Ya Been Mate? and Kings with Empty Pockets.

The Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature recognises Mr Wharton's writing for "its unique and untold perspective of Australian rural heritage"; particularly, for continuing to tell stories of the Aboriginal contribution to the Australian pastoral industry.

The Fryer Library began to collect Wharton's work in 1996 and the collection reflects his passion for Aboriginal literature and stories. It includes valuable insights into his writing process, such as transforming an oral story into a published work. Wharton's role in this process can be traced from audiotapes of oral stories told by other drovers, working notes, interactions with UQP editorial staff, to the completed drafts of works such as Cattle Camp.

The collection is also unrivalled as a personal archive of this important writer's work. As Mr Wharton told Sue Abbey in a 2007 interview, it contains "the first bit of notes."

"I probably thought about (writing) for fifty years, but it took me forty odd years to write my first notes down".

More information about the $50 000 Lifetime Achievement award, which recognises contributions to Australian literature, is available on The Australia Council webpage. The full text of Sue Abbey's 2007 interview with Herb Wharton is available in Fryer Folios (July, 2007).

Lesueur was part of the French Government's 1800 scientific exploration of 'New Holland' led by Nicholas Baudin. Originally employed to illustrate the captain's log of his journey, Lesueur is now remembered for his detailed drawing of animals as well as early European representations of Australian landscapes and Indigenous cultures.

Fryer holds multiple editions of the Voyage de decouvertes aux terres Australes. Its publication was sponsored by the emperor Napoleon in 1806 and illustrations by Lesuer and text by the expedition's zoologist Péron.
Some of the Fryer staff's favourite illustrations from volume one include the platypus, wombats, and cassowaries.

Last Friday the University of Queensland formally accepted a gift of over $3million from the T.B. Sailors', Soldiers' & Airmen's Association of Queensland. The recently disbanded Association has donated its assets to UQ's Centre for Military and Veterans' Health for ongoing research of tuberculosis, and the Association's historical records are now part of the Fryer Library collection. The records have been catalogued as a lasting legacy of the organisation's contribution to supporting veterans with TB.

In 1919 tubercular ex-servicemen banded together to form the T.B. Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen's Association of Queensland, with the mission to advocate for and support those with TB, and their spouses and children. In addition to providing financial and housing assistance to members, the Association formed a social net for TB sufferers who otherwise faced a life of chronic illness and discrimination from society that feared contracting the 'white plague'.

The Fryer Library's origins stem from this same historical context. John Denis 'Jack' Fryer enlisted with the First Australian Imperial Force in 1916 and returned from service after being wounded by a stick bomb. He resumed study at the University of Queensland but was too ill with tuberculosis to sit his finalexaminations in 1922. He stayed for a while at the Ardoyne Red Cross Hospital in Corinda and then returned to his family's home in Springsure, where he passed away on 7 February 1923. The Student's Dramatic Society commemorated Fryer, their late Vice-President, with a gift of £10. Dr F W Robinson ('Doc Robbie') used the funds to establish the Fryer Memorial Library of Australian Literature. This library expanded over time to become the Fryer Library today.