A quick reminder that Fryer Library is closed on Monday, October 7 2013, for the Labour Day Public holiday. You can check the opening hours for all UQ Libraries online.

This photo was one of seven recently donated to Fryer Library, each depicting railway related history from Queensland. The elephants belonged to Wirths' Circus, which travelled Australia by train from the earliest days of the railways in the 1880s up until the circus' demise in 1963.

The Fryer Library's collections of Queensland political organisations and student activists groups are supported by a growing collection of 'ephemera', which is library-speak for written or printed material that is usually created for a short-term purpose.

Political ephemera collected by Fryer ranges from how to vote cards, posters, buttons, bumper stickers, and t-shirts, to a newly acquired Kevin Rudd tote bag. These collections are still referred to as the 'Fryer Vertical Files' (FVFs), a reference to the filing cabinets they were once stored in.

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.

Fryer Library's collections provide many opportunities to examine the Queensland sugar industry's labour issues and to catch an arresting glimpse into the lives of South Sea Islanders at home and in Australia. 2013 marks the 150th anniversary of the first arrival of South Sea Islanders in Queensland to provide low paid, indentured labour for the new state's fledgling primary industries, notably sugar and cotton.

On July 25, author and journalist Matthew Condon sat down in conversation with HPRC's Dr Geoff Ginn for a discussion about his latest book, Three crooked kings, which follows the career of former police commissioner Terry Lewis, exposing the story of how Queensland society was shaped by almost half a century of corruption.

For this month's Collection Spotlight, guest writer, Sue Bell, shares her experiences of researching her great-grandmother's letters in the Fryer Library's collection.

Records of women's lives in the 19th century are very sparse in comparison with those of men or at least 'important' men. Women were usually invisible with few or no signs that they had lived and even wives of 'important' men were only recorded when they were attending social occasions or accompanying their husbands to events.

Amongst Fryer's manuscript collections is a folder of papers relating to the 1948 St Patrick's Day clash in Brisbane. The papers form part of the collection of Connie Healy, whose husband, Mick Healy, was secretary of the Trades & Labor Council of Queensland at the time. Mick Healy was the leader of the protest march that was met with such violence by the Queensland police.

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.

The latest issue of Fryer Folios has just been published. Focusing on Stradbroke Island, articles include: