The 2012 Friends of Fryer Christmas event struck a high note, with over fifty guests attending to hear Professor Peter Roennfeldt speak about his new book Northern Lyrebird: The contribution to Queensland's Music by its Conservatorium 1957-2007.

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

Fryer Library was delighted to recently add to its collection a silk theatre handbill. With black print on cream silk and a fringed edging, it is a very early example of this genre in Brisbane.

As advertised in yesterday's The Australian, a call for applications has been announced for the 2013 Fryer Library award.

Each year the Fryer Library awards $10 000 and provides institutional support for a successful applicant to undertake research in Australian literature, history and culture, using the collections of the Fryer Library.

8 November marks 165 years since author Bram Stoker was born in Dublin, Ireland. Fryer Library holds two letters written by Stoker. The first dates from December 1884 and was sent to Edmund Hodgson Yates; the other dates from July 1903 and was sent to Edmund's son, Edmund Smedley Yates.

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.

The University of Queensland Anthropology Museum has launched a new online catalogue, which includes records of over 26 000 items from the Museum's ethnographic, photographic and lithic collections.

The catalogue is available to the public via a new website: www.anthropologymuseum.uq.edu.au/ .

Writing? Under 35? Written at least 30,000 words? Interested in The Australian/Vogel's Literary Award?